Emrys Emergent
by Tonzura123
Summary: Merlin and Arthur must protect Camelot against Mordred, who has stolen the powers of Emrys for himself. Reveal story. AU post S4. Rated for violence. Whump, BAMFery, and bromance galore.
1. Emrys Emergent

**Emrys Emergent**

**by Tonzura123**

**Disclaimer: No money will come out of this.**

**A/N: This timeline is in vague accordance with recent spoilers for 4x13, none of which I will reveal here. **

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><p><em>"...But the scholar ran<br>Before the master, and so far, that Bleys  
>Laid magic by, and sat him down, and wrote<br>All things and whatsoever Merlin did  
>In one great annal-book," <em>

_-The Coming of Arthur, _Tennyson

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><p>King Arthur Pendragon of Camelot is holding a competition.<p>

This is not unheard of in Albion- the High King is notoriously competitive, championing in everything from lance to sword to mace to foot-racing. In Camelot, it is custom for such celebrations to follow every birthday, wedding, anniversary, or quest, which frequent the well populated and happy lands. If one is lucky, they can make it to Camelot from one of the outlying villages just in time to see King Arthur fight his knights, which are always the fiercer, faster, bloodier affairs. The people cheer in the stands at the sight of their leaders in combat- in these times a man proves his worth in battle, and the Knights of the Round Table certainly do that.

But no, I return to my original point, which is to say that King Arthur is holding a competition of unusual nature:

A magic competition.

If the King is actually to go through with it, then it will be the first Camelot has seen in over a quarter of a century. Magic was strictly banned, under pain of death, until the spring before last. Rumor had it that Arthur had fallen in love with a young witch, but this is all claptrap to anyone who has seen him with Queen Guinevere. No indeed, for I will confide in the reader that the King was influenced by a connection much deeper than infatuation.

"Arthur," I say, while George helps the King don his long, heavy cape, "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

"The thing is, Merlin," Arthur drawls, glancing down occasionally to watch George's progress with the fastenings, "Every time you suggest this thing, you always manage to talk me back out of it. Then, two days later, you feel like it's a terrific idea again."

"Forgive me, Sire, it's just spells and shape shifting and such give me this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach-"

"- That's your tummy telling you to lay off the grapes, _Mer_lin."

"I'm in stitches, Sire. But really, Arthur, what if one of them decides it's the perfect opportunity?"

"To off me? It is the perfect opportunity. But that's why I'm armed, you're armed, _George_ is armed, and all the Knights are close at hand."

I look to George. His face never changes as he replies, "Brass knuckles, Sire."

Arthur shoots me a grin over George's flat hair. "And you Merlin? No swords, I hope?"

"I, er, may have forgotten mine," I say offhandedly.

In truth, my weapon never leaves me, but I can't tell Arthur that. Despite magic being free again in Camelot, there always remain the few odd sorcerers that feel like Arthur is secretly plotting to draw them out and kill them off. I don't think I have to tell you, reader, that Arthur intends nothing of the sort. You see, Arthur is that type of king that bards and scholars will love waxing eloquent about for centuries- tall, blond, fazing blue eyes, a confident stride, and a noble generosity. He's the Once and Future King. He's also a complete prat.

He shakes George's hands off of him, strides across from the bedside to his table, picks up a knife and tosses it my way. It hasn't been so long that I can't leap out of the way before it nicks me. Being Arthur's manservant was no picnic.

"Then again, maybe it's _my_ life I need to worry about!" I mutter, bending to retrieve the utensil. The end is crooked and the blade is dull. Longsufferingly, I tuck it into my belt beneath my robes.

"That's the spirit, Merlin!" Arthur's face is nearly split with his glee. "Just think about it- thousands of sorcerors from all over, just itching to join in the fun."

"You really are suicidal, my Lord." He may have Excalibur strapped to his left hip, but even his magic sword may not be enough to take out _that_ many magic-users.

My face is tight with the stress of calculating how to take out so many without being noticed, and Arthur must notice, because he sets a heavy, gloved hand over my shoulder. I am struck by a memory of standing in front of this same window, about to face a dragon, and Arthur across from me with serious eyes, the first time he had seen me as a sort of knight. The first time I had seen him as a brother- A friend I could look up to, and not always need to guide.

"Don't fret so much, idiot, you look like a complete ninny-knickers."

I think I smile. Two years. Is that long enough? Nine years in his service. Three years since my promotion. Should I make it an even ten? Ten- a decade. It seems like such a long time to know someone.

"-Oh, and Merlin?" Arthur's voice breaks through my thoughts like a warning bell, "I hope you're ready to get those ceremonial robes dirty."

I blink. "Why?"

**OooOooOooOooO**

"I'm going to kill you. Forget them. _I will kill you_."

"Not nervous, are you, Merlin?" Arthur wonders from his exported throne, hand wrapped up in Gwen's, who is also robed in cardinal reds and white."Don't worry. It's completely normal. Think positive thoughts."

His head is bare, as he likes for these outdoor events, and he sits forward under the shade of the awning, like he's about to witness a good joust. Gwen sends me a knowing and slightly apologetic smile from my spot at his right shoulder. Dressed like a peacock in the purple, blue, and gold finery that Arthur picked out for me, I can see the full arena from here. While I smile cordially and wave to the right people, my voice is not nearly as welcoming;

"May I ask if his Majesty is ill in the head?" I return with venom, "_I will not participate,_ Arthur."

"Do you know what?" Arthur says, like he's just realized, "I think I'm your King and you're my courtier, and I get to tell you what to do."

"As your _Royal Advisor_ I advise you to tell me otherwise."

"Or what?"

Gwen intercedes here before I can tell him _what_, "Merlin, please. You don't have to do much. It will set so many of these sorcerers at ease to know that Arthur is permitting his own advisor to use magic."

Not this sorcerer.

"What if it insults them?"

"Why on earth would it do that?" Arthur asks. "Better you than me."

Before I can reply, he stands with Gwen and raises his voice above the crowds.

"People of Camelot! Travelers! Magic-users! Welcome!"

The mixing shades of browns, greens, and tans shuffle to a low murmur. Thousands of eyes find us on the dais. My stomach jumps. I force a grin that I know looks nowhere as natural as Arthur's or a welcoming as Gwen's.

"On this day, we celebrate the second year of magic in Camelot! It has been many years, with many trials, years of darkness and fear. Today I begin a new tradition- A competition of magic! All able students of magic, those with or without rank, are welcome to compete. The rules are these: Victory goes to the first blood, unconsciousness, or surrender. I bid all who participate to follow a code of honor. Today we set a standard for all who come after!"

They are entranced by him- as if Arthur knows a magic that can forge such loyalty. I almost forget my nerves, but then he turns his eyes on me, and I am startled into fear again. He reaches out, claps me on the shoulder, and looks out to Camelot.

"In the spirit of today's festivities, my counselor and oldest friend, Merlin, has volunteered to join."

Whispers stir up like snakes or scales. I itch to duck behind one of the poles.

"I wish you all the best. May the competition begin!"

The crowd cheers, waving flags and sticks and arms like weaponry. Sir Leon, streaks of grey in his hair from an uneasy first year with magic users in his squadron, steps down from the stands to march before the dais. He holds a large gilded scroll with the list of participants, which looks very impressive indeed when he unrolls it and reads aloud;

"Dein, Son of Coul and Druid Elder, Berre!"

Arthur lets me stay next to him during the first round between a forty-or-so year-old Druid and a boy who looks about ten. (Actually, Arthur is more like _bullied_ by Gwen, who sends him a very stern, somehow entreating look that melts the prat into a gooey puddle.) This leaves me with a place that I can hide a little longer and watch the competition a little better. Immediately, I notice a problem:

The Druid and boy are both using spells. Basic ones. Moving dirt. Gusts of wind. Summoning flies.

I know this is why Arthur volunteered me- Gaius left me all of his spell books after he passed away last fall and Arthur had visited my room more than once to find me buried in them. He thought I was just curious, maybe bored, maybe even believed I was working hard at my job to advise him with every possible angle in mind. This was more a prank than anything. Arthur knows how I'm pants at fighting. He expects this to be a laugh. Like old times. He misses those times desperately.

In the arena, the boy squeals as the Druid (who is going very easy on him) summons a small garden snake. It hisses, but is bascially harmless. The boy rips off his arm band in surrender.

Arthur groans a little, but claps and nods at the boy, who looks a little flushed. A few of the sorcerers are booing the Druid. It was a very odd pairing for a match. I suspect that the names were drawn at random, but they should have at least been sorted by age. I make a mental tally to inform Arthur later.

Sir Leon reenters the field and unrolls his scroll. He looks up at the dais with incredulity and a little humor.

"Master Bleys of Camelot and Counselor Merlin of Ealdor!"

I let go of a tight breath, shakily rising to my feet.

"Good luck!" Arthur calls sweetly.

I barely hear him, I am concentrating on not missing a step in the hazy world that has become mine. The crowds seem quiet, but I can hear a dull hushing crash, like a tide, like the inevitable all around me. Leon stops me at the foot of the stands, presses a circle of black fabric at me.

So suddenly, I am facing across a dirt field from a well-robed magician. I recall his face from the peace talks. He is well versed in magic, with white hair and strong frame. He is powerful. Almost arrogant, because he does have a right, as others say. He smiles at me. I see his mouth moving, promising that he will go easily.

I remember that I have a reputation to keep up- a Counselor. I cannot look the fool. I cannot lose too badly. I'm pants at fighting.

Leon must have stepped away- Bleys is moving. His hands twist around each other, his mouth is forming a beautiful stream of magic words, his eyes glow a steady gold, throwing extra light under the sun, casting double shadows across the ground. Spells.

I look to Arthur. His eyes are wide, excitement, nerves, maybe honest doubt. Should he have put me in an arena with a sorcerer? I read his lips, _Move, idiot!_

I move.

A fireball crackles past my right ear as I hit the ground and roll. The ceremonial robes have lit by a stray flame. Panicked, I shed the outer robes, kick them away from me. Laughter echoes in the stands. Bleys rolls the fire between his fingers, smiling. He has the right.

"First time?" he calls, not unkindly.

"You could say that," I respond, brushing the sleeve of my shirt. The participant band is wrapped twice around my left wrist, unscathed. Possibly spelled.

"I am a first-class magician," Bleys tells me sternly. "I have battled many sorcerers in my lifetime. What would you say your rank is?"

"I really can't say." Because really, I can't.

"Have you been taught how to fight with magic?"

"I have a spell book," I allow. He smiles, trying not to laugh at me. Stepping lightly, circling each other, he makes the fire in his hand change shape. From bear, to hawk, to rabbit. It's so painfully natural.

"Fighting and reading are two separate arts," says Master Bleys. "Show me a spell that you have read."

"A spell I've read?"

He nods, "Something with some sting."

Utterly bemused, I bring my hands together, open them to let out a frog. It croaks and jumps from my hands, hopping off into the stands where the grass grows around. The people roar with laughter. Arthur is cheering. I've just done a Summoning in front of Arthur. It's so surreal, I'm almost tempted to do it again. Arthur is _cheering _for me to use magic!

"Hardly an attack," Bleys says sympathetically, "Not even a spell."

"Er," I say, laughing,"to be honest, I'm not all that thrilled to be here- You haven't done anything to me." I'm ready to surrender. I've done enough today to make up for a lifetime of secrecy. But Destiny isn't done with me yet. Bleys draws his foot through the dirt and I watch; it can either be idle movement, or the beginning of a conversion spell- dirt to something else.

"Not a competitive bone in your body, is there?" Bleys asks.

"No."

"What if I were to do this?"

Fire envelopes me.

I can't hear the screaming crowd. I don't see Arthur jump from his seat on the dais. I do feel the heat of the flame brushing against me, scalding my skin like I've thrust myself into a boiling pot in the kitchens- I smell burning skin and arm hair and I feel sick again. I think I might even scream.

Then I'm lying on the ground, breathing in dust. Arthur's voice is coming from somewhere far from me.

"Enough! Enough! He surrenders; it's enough."

"No blood. No unconsciousness. No surrender," Bleys' deep voice reminds me, "You have _potential_, Counselor. Show me what you can do."

"Merlin! Get up!"

I raise my head, shake it. It feels like water is swishing back and forth inside my head. I twist to see Arthur standing in his box, eyes wide. His voice comes again, almost like he's standing directly beside me.

"He's getting killed out there, Guinevere!"

Her voice, no less clear, is strained as she pulls on his arm, "Take him out now, and it will be against your own rules. You _must_ let Merlin handle this, Arthur."

Arthur's hand crosses to rub at his chin. An angry line of red marks his jaw.

"What's that?" I murmur. The ground beats below me. Rhythmic. Living.

"What's what?" Bleys wonders.

I try to focus on it; it's a welting strip of fire. A burn across Arthur's jaw, I realize.

"Did you do that?" I ask. My jaw is tight and my eyes are hot. Bleys does not hear me. I roll onto my side and climb back onto my feet. The crowd cheers. I can hear Arthur's heartbeat increase from here.

"All right, Counselor?" Master Bleys of Camelot calls.

My arms ache with the raw skin left behind. My nose burns. My eyes heat up with a rush that fills my very blood, unseen though it may be.

"You should not have hurt my friend," I reply coldly.

Leon steps off of the field. The skin of a tight drum rebounds in the cool air. The round begins again.

Bleys lights his hands with fire. Arthur tenses, joints in his hands creaking as he grips the wooden barrister.

At my side, my fingers twist against each other.

The fire leaps from Bleys' hands, falling to the floor of the arena as he chases it like a dropped vase or book. I pull it towards me, with a look. It's so painfully natural. Ancient. On either side of me, a pillaring leg plants itself. The heat of the growing monster beats at my back, drops excess from the sky onto my head. My eyes are hot and dry. Like the dragon of fire that rears up on its hind legs behind me, they burn a wicked gold.

The arena is roaring- fear, excitement, bloodthirst colliding- but my fire dragon roars louder yet. It sniffs the air, stares down at Bleys, who is trying to summon water, air, crack the earth maybe. His spells all fail. I don't want them to succeed.

He looks up to focus on my dragon instead. He raises a shaking hand, commands it in the Druid tongue, yelling, "_Disperse" _along with _"turn on thine master" _and "_Suffocate."_

"_O Dracon," _I call, endless magic lashing through me. The language of my forefathers makes the first-class Master blanch and the dragon twists his crackling head so that it rests close to my mine. In plain English, I demand, "_Devour him_."

Wings made of ash and the whitest fire spread out over the arena. The heat and smoke fills the sky as the fire dragon throws back its head to belch a stream of flames into the clouds above. Then, grinning harshly, it turns to face Bleys-

-Who is in a dead faint on the ground.

The heat leaves my eyes. The monster rearing above me disappears. Two clear footprints mark the ground where he had stood- the ground is melted to glass and slowly cooling. I wave a hand over the bits that are still running downhill, and they freeze in place, crystallizing at supernatural speed into rosy quartz.

It is then that I look up to Arthur. I know not what my face betrays, or how my body feels beyond the magnetic draw I have to my King, who is looking at me as he has never before- As if he is seeing me for the first time. And _God _what wonder it is to have him see me!

"The- The winner is Counselor Merlin of Ealdor!" comes Sir Leon's stunned voice.

"Actually," my voice rings through the silence of the arena. Between Arthur and I, the weight of the Albion halves. "In here, I'm called Emrys."

The Druids go wild.

And the Once and Future smiles down at me.

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><p><strong>AN: Here's hoping you enjoyed the story! Feel free to drop a line, I look forward to hearing what you all think! Also-"The Precious of Gaia" will be updated soon. Merry Christmas!**

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**


	2. Felix: Hat Maker and Tomato Hater

**Emrys Emergent**

**Chapter Two: The Origin of Felix: Hat-Maker and Tomato-Hater**

**by Tonzura123**

**Disclaimer: I own the patch for BBC's plot****-****holes. That's it.**

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><p>"And there I saw mage Merlin, whose vast wit<br>And hundred winters are but as the hands  
>Of loyal vassals toiling for their liege.<br>And near him stood the Lady of the Lake,  
>Who knows a subtler magic than his own-"<p>

-_The Coming of Arthur, _Tennyson

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><p>After I have defeated Master Bleys in the arena and announced my Battler's Name to the ranks of royals, peasants, and magic alike, I wait in the physician's tent for my next competitor to be announced.<p>

All five surrender at the sound of their names.

What else can I do? I pack my things, let my manservant, Felix, carry my burnt robes, and make my way in secret back to the castle. There is only one more round in the day and I am not in it.

"Don't you want to stay and watch?" Felix asks me on the walk back. "I'll bet the next sorcerers will be the bloodiest!"

Felix has a certain fondness for blood that has served him rather well. He is sixteen summers and has spent the last three of them in my service.

Initially, it had been a means of repaying a debt. When he was thirteen, he had bloodied up a sorcerer intent on taking Arthur's life. I had been ill at the time. Feverish. To be honest, I don't _remember _hiring Felix, but Arthur and the knights swear they had seen the entire ordeal; only too eager to remind me of how I'd run into the throne room, beet-red and sweating in my nightclothes, and swept down on Felix and collected him into the tightest embrace of his life. Arthur always liked to include the fact that I had been blabbering "thick-headed garble," but I suspect what I had been saying had been too intelligent for him to puzzle out.

Now, at the time Felix had saved Arthur's life, magic had technically still been illegal, so Arthur had been prepared to spare Felix the death sentence and banish him from Camelot. But when I burst in and started saying... _whatever_ it was I had said, he had retracted the banishment in exchange for five years of servitude in my care.

Sometimes, I feel that this was more in the spirit of getting me back for being a lousy manservant than just honoring the life debt owed to a sorcerer.

"You were bloody brilliant, sir!" Felix shouts happily. A pair of young ladies passing us by blush fiercely.

"It's Merlin, Felix, and don't swear. You sound like a complete dung-dunce."

"I never know what you're saying when _you _swear!"

"That's the beauty of it- Is it insulting? Is it complimentary? Should I hit him? Should I hug him? And by the time they muscle it out, you're on the other side of the kingdom."

"I prefer a good fight. Like what you did today! Cor! It was _brilliant_!"

"His spell went wonky and hit His Majesty," I say primly. "That's bad form, Felix. Never fall victim to bad form. Especially in a sorcerer competition."

"At first you were a ninny," Felix affirms. His eyes are still dancing with sparks and spells. "Frogs and girly tricks and all 'Oh, let's not fight!' But when you pulled out that dragon! I thought the King was going to have a fit!"

"Oh," I say under my breath, "I wouldn't put it past him. The day is young."

Felix laughs. He loves it when I speak of Arthur as a friend almost as much as a good, bloody fight.

"I didn't even know you had magic, Sir!"

"Merlin. And I do."

"Cor," Felix says again, eyes wide as he stares up at me. "Was your magic supposed to be a secret?"

"It was. Well, not really. It's complicated. I suppose Arthur will have good reason to be upset with me. I wasn't really supposed to be good at magic."

"If he banishes you," Felix begins, unaware of how my stomach lurches, "Then I'm going with you. We can live off of the land and fight bandits, or maybe just start a tavern. I'm sure Sir Gwaine would visit us."

"I'm not going to be banished, Felix." My palms feel a little sweaty. "Now, when we get up to my rooms, I'm going to ask you to, please, find some basil and anise from the physician's stores. I'll pay her back later."

"Are you making a burn paste?"

In for a penny, as they say.

"A spell," I say, lowering my voice as we pass the smiling castle guards, "It works about the same, but it can be temperamental, which is why _I'll _be doing it and you'll be watching."

Felix looks at the singed robes he carries and then at my face, which I know is a raw red. He appears to be in deep thought. This merits a comfortable silence between us as we eventually come to my rooms, in the high Western tower.

My rooms used to be a place to store the leavings of palace chamber pots. Granted, when Arthur presented them to me, he'd had them scoured down several times so they would be fit to live in, but I know he'd intended it as something to keep in mind. And it stayed in my mind- because every time I enter, I cast a small scouring spell to clean the entire space. It has to be the cleanest place in all of Camelot by now.

I cast the same spell now, louder than I used to, which makes Felix jump and look at me. I ignore him and wave the fireplace into flame, pulling back the sheets so I can turn in early if I so choose, and magicking one of my quills to scratch down the instructions to the spell before I can forget. Felix watches in awed silence.

"_Teach me_," he says earnestly, dropping my robes onto a chair.

"Later." I summon the parchment, look it over and hold it out to Felix. "Basic ingredients. Bring them back and then start working on your Latin."

Felix scowls. He hates Latin.

"I'll teach you a _cleaning _spell to help with your chores if you get through it all tonight," I say, enticingly holding up my ancient spell book that Gaius had given me many years ago. Felix hesitates until I waggle my eyebrows and add, "It has to do with _dusting_."

He snatches the parchment and bolts out the door.

**OooOooOooOooO**

"That's it?" Felix whines. "What about the magic words?"

I check my refection in the looking-glass, which reveals that my skin has fully healed. "What did you expect?"

"I wanted something to catch on fire!"

I fight not to smile, "Not everything in magic is fire and blood. Sometimes it's just putting basil and anise in a wooden bowl and dropping some silver on it."

"That's _boring_ magic, Merlin."

"Dead useful though," I press the looking-glass into Felix's hands to be returned to the cupboard, "Now I won't look like a tomato at the banquet tonight."

"Do you know," grumbles Felix, as he corrects the state of the room and snatches a pair of fresh robes from my wardrobe, "Before I came to Camelot I didn't even know what tomatoes _were_? I thought they were poisonous! And I wasn't that far off the mark, either."

"Tomatoes were brought to Camelot by magic," I tell him, sliding my arms into the robes and pulling the front clasps together, "A spell gone wrong from before the Great Purge. They were trying to rescue a sorcerer who fell over the side of the world- far out across the western sea. Instead, they had a bunch of strange fruits."

"I thought they were vegetables."

"It hardly matters. They're not good for anything but throwing at people in the stocks."

Felix seems encouraged by this, pulling on my collar and sleeves until he deems them perfect, then steps back to take me in.

"Hmm," he says seriously. "Your hair."

My hand unconsciously jumps to my head, "My hair?" It's certainly a little longer than any other council members, but I don't really care to cut it. However, as I run a hand through it, I can instantly feel the problem. "Oh, dear."

"You fixed your burnt skin," Felix tells me, "But Bleys still singed off some of your hair."

I snap my fingers, and the looking-glass shoots out of the cupboard, back into my waiting hand. The impact stings. I bring it up and twist my head to see the peeping edge of white skin on the back of my scalp.

"Maybe no one will notice," I say optimistically, brushing at the hair around the patch in hopes of covering it up.

"If _I _noticed, _someone _will notice."

"I don't _know _a hair-growing spell!"

"Maybe we should just shave it all off?"

"Absolutely _not!"_

"Well..." he flutters and then throws up his hands in surrender, "Well, then- What do you want to do?"

"If I can just- Cover it, somehow-"

"A hat!" Felix cries triumphantly. My stomach swoops warningly.

"A hat?"

"A big one!" he continues caught up by the notion, "Something that a council member wouldn't think twice about!"

I think of bright red feathers and a snickering Arthur and set my teeth:

"I think I'd rather shave my head."

A loud knocking comes from my door. Felix and I jump, turning to each other, looking quickly around the room. The knocking continues as Felix leaps away from me, grabs up my blue night cap, and mutters a starching spell, to clean it, I suppose, but instead, the spell causes the hat to point straight up like a dunce cap. Before I can argue, he jams it over my head and the door swings open to reveal Sir Elyan.

"Merlin?" he asks, dressed in clean mail and a sweeping cardinal cape. His hand rests on the pommel of his sword. He looks uncertainly between Felix and I. "Ready?"

"Yes, thanks," I say stiffly. Felix nudges me into stepping forwards.

We descend the tower in semi-awkward silence. Elyan continues glancing at my hat. In the moments that he does not glance at my hat, _I _try to glance at my hat through the reflections of suits of armor and metal pitchers lining the halls. I have a sneaking suspicion that it isn't just the metal winking back at me in the light.

Out of the corner of my mouth, I whisper to Felix, "Is this hat _sparkling?"_

"It's _very_ clean," Felix whispers back.

I hope he's prepared for extra Latin tonight. And Greek. And some Babylonian, just for the fun of it. No more cleaning spells for him.

Elyan clears his throat, "You did very well today, Merlin. We were surprised."

"Thanks," I say again. "I aim to please."

"Gwaine says he's never seen the Druids so riled. It was a little worrying."

"I'm sure they'll calm down after they've eaten something."

"Merlin." Elyan stops walking and tries to catch my eye. The effect is somewhat ruined, because the glare from my hat forces him to blink rapidly. "Me and the knights talked and we think you seem a little... _comfortable_ with that level of magic."

I look at him innocently. "Am I under arrest, Elyan?"

"Should you be?"

"Well, seeing as Arthur was the one to _order _me to do magic, I suppose we'd have to start with him. But then, magic hasn't been illegal for two years now, so technically that means it is, in fact, _legal_. Encouraged, even. So, good on me for practicing a little flibbertigibbet in a magic competition sanctioned by the King. I think I deserve the week off."

Elyan laughs, disarmed by my blabbering. "Arthur has never given you a day off in your life."

I purse my lips, squint at him. "No, I suppose not." And I continue down the hall. Elyan and Felix quickly follow me.

**OooOooOooOooO**

It is a small mercy indeed that Arthur waits until after all of the toasts and welcomes to the Four Neighboring Kings to lean to his right and gleefully ask, "What in _God's name _are you wearing, _Mer_lin?"

The knights are bearing down on their plates like wolves down the table. The Kings are doing little better. Feasts and banquets really don't look any more appealing from the table than at someone's elbow. At least a few of the ladies are attempting decorum- Gwen picks at her meat pie with a delicate little fork. Lady Vivien sips at her red wine. Princess Elena, who has a broken arm from her round with a Crone, determinedly approaches her meal with a slightly less dexterous left hand.

"Only the latest fashion," I return with a haughty air, "It's all the rage in Gaul."

Arthur snorts. "You look like you were attacked by a mob of Sidhe."

I drop all airs and moodily stab my roasted tomato. "Close enough."

Arthur looks at my hat like he would very much love to flick it. Unfortunately, flicking a Counselor's hat while dining with the Four Neighboring Kings is hardly the proper thing to do, no matter how ridiculous it looks. He restrains himself, but it is a near thing.

"What happened to your burns?" he asks instead.

I drop my fork. It clangs off the side of my metal platter and clatters to the stone floor, drawing all eyes from up and down and round the table. Quite stupidly, I wave. They go back to their meals with a surprising variety of eye rolls.

"Er," I say to Arthur, and Felix returns my fork to me, "The old spell book Gaius gave me. It had a cure in there."

I prepare for all of the questions. The generic "How long have you been practicing magic?" The old circular argument about how sorcerers plot to corrupt. The suspicious note of how a beginner in magic can take out a Master. The meaning of Emrys and the Druids' reaction. The accusal of betrayal. The cold ice frosting over his eyes. The very ghost of Uther exhumed from Arthur's boiling blood.

"Oh." Arthur says, "Good work."

I'm too stunned to reply. Arthur turns away from me again and begins talking to Gwen. She's smiling brightly at him, and he laughs. His hand keeps straying to her shoulder, brushing lightly against her collar there. She sets a hand against her middle as she laughs at something he says, most likely about me and my hat.

I scowl, and mash my tomatoes into little pulpy pieces. Behind me, Felix makes a sound that can either be disgusted or jubilant. I'm not in the mood to choose.

And then a whisper of purple catches my eye.

I stand. No one in the room seems to notice. Frozen in time, they eat, drink, and make merry with their neighbor in the short breath of peace they are allowed. Wine stills in the air as it pours, the tangle of lover's hands ceases, and enemies are stopped in mid-kiss.

The Lady of the Lake smiles at me from Gwen's side. She rests one pale hand on the Queen's shoulder, opposite Arthur's. Her eyes are calm like still water and as deep and dark as the sea.

"Hello, Freya," I whisper.

"Hello, Merlin," she returns, softly. Our voices seem to echo through time.

I take in the long brown hair that tumbles down her back like a waterfall, itching to reach out and tangle my fingers in it. To kiss that sweetly smiling mouth.

"I've missed you," I say. Despite all of my wishes, I daren't move from where I stand. The magic holding us is tenuous. A single rivulet: easily misguided.

Freya's eyes search my face, "And I you."

I think I laugh, though I don't know how I could around the chasm in my chest and the barrenness of my own tongue. My eyes feel hot again; I blink quickly and dash at them with my sleeve.

When I look up, Freya is directly in front of me. She catches my hands in hers and I shudder at the warm life in them. Slowly, watching me closely, she leans upwards and presses her wonderous lips against mine. Something wet falls from my eye.

"A kiss of death," she whispers to me. I look at her. She turns her attention to my hands, brings my knuckles to her lips and lets out a soft breath. A thrill runs up my arms.

"A breath of life." Freya smoothes one finger down my cheek and it's all I can do not to bury my face in her palm. "Emrys is immortal. Someone must be fleeting. This is the way of the Old Religion."

"But not _you_," I say forcefully. The world flickers with the urgency behind it. Freya catches my chin, smiles sadly.

"Not me," she agrees, "Though would to God it were."

"_Not Arthur_," I insist. Even I can hear the riled arrogance in my tones. Should destiny claim him, it would take more than me to stop it.

"Not Arthur," she says gently, rubbing my wrist with a soft hand. "Fate designs a far more horrid price, Merlin. To grant one life forever, by taking one that never lived."

And her eyes, beautiful and loving, fall on Gwen.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Questions, comments, concerns, or silly remarks can be submitted via review or PM. Thanks to all who have read! I'm upping the rating because my longer stories tend to have a lot of violence. Just a head's up.**

**Happy New Years!**

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**


	3. The Imbalance

**Emrys Emergent**

**Chapter Three: The Imbalance**

**by Tonzura123**

**Disclaimer: One day. One day...**

* * *

><p>...her face<br>Wellnigh was hidden in the minster gloom;  
>But there was heard among the holy hymns<br>A voice as of the waters, for she dwells  
>Down in a deep; calm, whatsoever storms<br>May shake the world, and when the surface rolls,  
>Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord.<p>

-_The Coming of Arthur, _Tennyson

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><p><strong>AN: My apologies for beginning this story without warning my American readers: SPOILERS THRU 4X13. There will be no dancing around plot points and major revelations or anything of the sort. I WILL spoil you. Read at your own risk. **

_"A kiss of death," she whispers to me. I look at her. She turns her attention to my hands, brings my knuckles to her lips and lets out a soft breath. A thrill runs up my arms._

_"A breath of life." Freya smoothes one finger down my cheek and it's all I can do not to bury my face in her palm. "Emrys is immortal. Someone must be fleeting. This is the way of the Old Religion."_

_"But not _you_," I say forcefully. The world flickers with the urgency behind it. Freya catches my chin, smiles sadly._

_"Not me," she agrees, "Though would to God it were."_

_"_Not Arthur_," I insist. Even I can hear the riled arrogance in my tones. Should destiny claim him, it would take more than me to stop it._

_"Not Arthur," she says gently, rubbing my wrist with a soft hand. "Fate designs a far more horrid price, Merlin. To grant one life forever, by taking one that never lived."_

_And her eyes, beautiful and loving, fall on Gwen._

Gwen, who is covered in the tall and glorious shadow of her husband and king. Gwen, who is frozen in joy and bliss and knows nothing of this supernatural exchange.

Freya pulls us through what feels like deep water to Gwen's side, churning time like tide around our hips and limbs. Minutes and seconds and eons drag on our bodies; I am weary by the time she rests our joined hands on the back of King Arthur's seat. Still, I look to the Lady and wait for her to speak again.

"We are elemental beings, Merlin," Freya says. "To us, the ancient forces of this world are our playmates. There are all manner of them, from Water," she glances slyly to me, "to Dragons. And the most ancient thing on earth is Life."

"Life is never something to play with," I say immediately.

"No," Freya agrees. "It is not. Life is the most powerful force of all. Above the crippling strength of Fear. Above the agony of Torture. Even that old tyrant, Death, is a coward before it. Life is an insurmountable ruler."

"Then why does the Old Religion claim equality between the two?" I ask. "Why Gwen for me? Why _anyone_ for me? Who says I want to live forever, anyway?" Even as I ask these things, I am thinking; _Never. Not anyone. Not ever._

"The Old Religion," says Freya in a surprisingly frosty tone, "claims many things. But the Old Religion is _not _a part of the world you and Arthur are bringing."

Freya looks as if she is going to continue in this vein, circling 'round destiny and fate and all explanations of magic but I grip her hand and pull it to my chest. She follows it, soft hand tracing mine as I capture her gaze. In her dark eyes, I can see something more sinister attempting to bury itself.

"Freya, why have you come here?"

She looks away. I take her chin and tilt her face back. Eventually, she answers;

"To warn you."

"Warn me?"

"Today in the arena... The invocation of your Old name has caused an imbalance in the ways of magic. The servants of the Old Religion are only too eager to remedy that."

An invocation of my Old name? I think back to the arena, the smoking dust and laughing fire and the roar of the wild Druids and the cheering of the stands... All one big blur of time.

I shake my head in frustration. "But why would killing _Gwen _fix-?"

"-Not Guinevere, Merlin," Freya interrupts urgently, "But the life within her that has _never lived_."

"A life that never-"

I stop talking. I look down at the frozen Gwen, where her hand is laying over the flat plain of her stomach.

"Gwen is-?"

"To invoke _Emrys_ or _immortality_ is as good as demanding it. And at the caliber of magic that you possess, Merlin, it was not a difficult spell to cast. You have been called _immortal_ by Druids for centuries. Now, you have accepted it. And the hounds are baying for the blood of King Arthur's unborn heir."

I cannot help but to recoil. The frozen world around us dimples and shudders at my sudden movement. Freya looks on with the same unmovable sadness.

"I don't want it," I choke, "It's just a _name_. A _title_."

The sympathy in Freya's haunting eyes nearly drowns me.

"It is so, so much more than that," she murmurs.

"Freya, _what do I do?_"

For the first time since she's died, Freya looks fierce. "You fight. I told you the ways of the Old Religion are not the ways of Albion. You fight, Merlin! There has been enough of death and darkness."

"_How _do I fight?"

"In three days, when the half-moon has brought all the magic of the world to its crest, bring the King and Queen to my lake. Use whatever means to bring them, and keep them safe."

The heightened colors and light of the room begin to fade. Freya's lovely face grows pale- translucent.

"Freya-" I step to her, my hand passing through hers.

She smiles up at me and leans on her toes to brush an airy kiss against my clenched jaw.

"_Three days, dear Heart..."_

A single breath carries her parting words to my ear. The weightless crush of time vanishes. My knees lock and I throw out my hands to catch hold of something before I crash to the floor. It is a near thing.

"_Mer_lin!"

"Sir!"

"Sire," I rasp, knuckles white on the back of Arthur's chair. Someone drops their goblet, the sound like a gong. Aware of the attention of the entire room, I lower my voice and lean down to meet his wide eyes. "You and I need to talk later."

**OooOooOooOooO**

I trail after Arthur's sweeping cape as we make our way to his chambers. Gwen strides beside me (probably afraid I'll pitch over again) and Sir Gwaine and Sir Leon bring up the rear. I sent Felix back to my chambers to practice Latin.

The banquet had lasted for another two hours, but I tremble still. Taking myself out of time to slow daggers or arrows or falling goblets is one thing. To be pulled body and soul from an event by another being is exhausting. Yet it is more than the aftershocks of powerful magic that make my hands quake and stomach twist. The weight of what I must tell Arthur- he will not take it kindly. Arthur does not take any sort of threat towards his loved ones kindly. More likely, he'll induce a manhunt in search of servants of the Old Religion. But that would mean going after the Druids first. Yet I know the Druids- and while they are loyal to Destiny, and believe that I will (must) live forever, they would not subject themselves to murder. They would not. They are peaceful.

_Who_, then, if not the Druids? Morgana? She is a High Priestess... But we have not had any word of her for years.

I shake my head- no word does not mean "no action." Morgana is a crafty witch. In all likelihood, she has _some_ hand in this plot. Some servant or understudy willing to risk their life to please her. A traitor in our midst. Oh, wouldn't that just be original?

A hand touches my arm- I jump.

Gwen smiles at me, concerned and warm, unmarred by the yards of silk and jewels that cover her. "Merlin? We're here."

I look to the familiar double doors of Arthur's rooms. Gwaine and Leon have left. Arthur is already pulling at the clasp on his neck as he pushes the doors open with one hand and strides in. Gwen and I follow.

His rooms have barely changed. A few pieces of furniture, maybe, where I know Arthur used to toss belongings onto the floor to be picked up. George is cleverer than I in that respect. The large bed canopied in red rests against the wall nearest the stained-glass. The wardrobe and the table repainting. A few objects have even been respectfully gilded with gold. In the middle of it all, Arthur is at home.

"So, what is this fainting business all about, Merlin?" Arthur asks, yanking off his cape and throwing it to a corner chair that George has positioned. "And you can be honest if you saw a rat- I know how you feel about those."

Gwen laughs, goes farther in to help him with his crown and vest. He smiles brightly down at her. I stay where I am in front of the closed doors.

"I saw a ghost."

Arthur and Gwen both pause, both turn to look at me. I have chills from their synchrony. There are womanly touches to the room, I realize. Flowers in vases. Softer blankets and more pillows. A second wardrobe for her long gowns and shifts and such.

"What?" Gwen asks, as Arthur wonders, "Are you on the cider, _again_, Merlin?"

"Her name is Freya," I continue, looking around the room, fiddling my fingers against the rough grain of the door. It is the one familiarity I can grasp at. "The Lady of the Lake."

"What lake?" Arthur says.

"_The _Lake. The only lake in all of Camelot."

"And this lady told you...?"

I steel myself, ready for an outburst. "Someone is after the Queen's child."

Arthur freezes with his back to me. For a moment, I think I've been pulled out of time again. Then, slowly, the King turns to look at me with an appraisal so harsh, I feel that he might be tempted to fight me.

"We have told _no one_ about Guinevere's pregnancy." Arthur says sharply. "How did you hear about it?"

"The Lady of the Lake came to me at dinner-"

"-Why didn't I see her?"

"She has... _powerful _magic, Arthur."

"But not powerful enough to talk to _us_ about _our_ child?" he asks angrily. Behind him, Gwen discreetly sinks into an armchair and lays a hand over her middle, staring a little into the distance. Arthur steps toward me, suddenly very much like his namesake, and I bump into the doors. "Who is after it?"

I shake my head, "I don't know."

"Why do they want it dead?"

"I can't say."

Arthur swears loudly. "There must be _something _you know, Merlin!"

"In three days," I say," you and Gwen need to come to the Lake with me."

"_Why_?"

"She didn't-"

"-She didn't say," Arthur finishes for me, a little coldly. I feel stung by his dismissal, but try to see the situation from his point of view.

"I know you must be... anxious, my Lord. But I _promise- _I'll do whatever it takes to keep the three of you safe."

Gwen laughs softly, and we both turn to her. She sounds a little amazed, "The three of us... I still can hardly believe it."

Arthur's face contorts. I can't tell if he's about to laugh or cry. I don't think he knows either. He scrubs a hand over his face, rubs at the bridge of his nose, and sighs. I stare at the floor and wait for my King to speak.

"What do we do until then?" he asks me.

"Continue on with business as usual," I reply. "No sudden changes. Whoever is after your child, they're in our midst, and they're waiting for a sign to act."

Arthur sighs again, "A traitor in our midst _is_ business as usual..."

I barrel on. "Keep up the competition. Keep smiling. Keep up your schedule. In three days, I'll come for you and Gwen, and we can go to the Lake in secret. Freya will guide us from there."

"And if they try to act before that day?"

I find that Arthur is desperately seeking out my answer, eyes large and a little damp. He looks all of twelve years old. It is because of this that my voice replies with an ease and control I rarely embody.

"I won't let them."

Arthur nods and no more is said that night.

**OooOooOooOooO**

On the second day of the magic competition, my competitors finally decide to fight.

I hear the summons through the tent where I wait, eager to avoid Arthur and Gwen so early in the morning, and get to my feet. The glory of the sun blinds me for a moment as we walk out into the open.

As my eyes focus, I find the true challenge:

The crowd is standing, craning, eerily silent as I walk down the gap between the stands. Onto the field where the dirt has turned to mud in some places and shredded in others by the fighting magicians. In the far corner, my rose quartz has grown to the size of a heifer. Not a single body moves as I take my position.

"Why are they looking at us like that?" Felix whispers.

He helps me back into the Ceremonial robes that I had him practice repair spells on. All in all, he did a fine job with the burned patches, although the patterns needled into the fine cloth have warped from twirling leaves and vines to gruesome, misshapen creatures with red and white falling like water from their mouths.

I look back to the staring citizens.

Curiosity makes either a confused noise or a studious silence. The intense attention here can only mean that I should move with extreme caution. Events today will not be easily rewritten.

My eyes dodge Arthur's stand, but find the nobles along the rim of the arena closest to the box. A clear group of Druids stand sturdy and solemn in their robes. A few bow as I look at them. None avoid my gaze or permeate ill intent.

"Thank you, Felix. That's all I need." I dismiss him gently, returning the looks of all who look down on me from their perches. He moves back into the shade, and Sir Leon, accompanied by a young woman with light hair, enters the field.

"Round Twenty-Seven!" says Leon, "Emrys, now with eleven victories, versus the Princess Elena!"

I rake my eyes over the face of the woman in front of me.

Before this competition, it had been many years since last I saw the princess, who at that time had been possessed by a Sidhe. She has the same features- round eyes and mouth, with white-gold hair, and a healthy figure. But something about her face has thinned, carved down. She has seen hard times of late. I immediately wonder about the health of her doting father.

"Merlin!" Elena smiles, "I hadn't the chance to speak to you last night. It is good to see you've been promoted."

"Wasn't easy." I study her, still surprised at her presence in this competition. "You still haven't had your arm mended?"

That same carved-down look seems to magnify, "There seems to be no spell-caster capable of fully healing a broken arm."

I look at the hampered limb, slung across her chest with thick fabric. The skin at her hand seems puffy, possibly infected. It looks worse than last night.

"I don't think I want to fight an injured woman," I say.

Elena grins and raises one eyebrow, "You? Surrendering?"

"I should think not." I smile, feeling the heat flash behind my eyes. Elena gasps, grabs at her right arm, gingerly feels around it, and then squeezes it rather firmly. She looks up at me intently.

"Better?"

"Much," she says sincerely, "Thank you."

"I glad to hear it."

"You won't be," she tells me, "After I've trounced you."

I grin and she mirrors me as I ready myself.

Leon looks between us, more than a little nervous, steps back, and says, "Begin!"

Elena jerks her head at me, her eyes flashing yellow, and I feel a gust of magic wash through me that would be enough to blast me off of my feet, if I wasn't steeled against the sort of thing. It's suspiciously familiar in scent.

"Nice!" I say, and raise my hand, pulling a cloud from its sail across the sky to fill the arena like smoke. Screams come, but none are Elena, and with another flash of my eyes, I can see her form, glowing, through the smog. I see her raise a hand as well.

The fog vanishes. She barks an unladylike laugh, victorious, and vanishes the ground beneath me.

I shift just in time, flapping for altitude, and catching a warm thermal high above the arena as I swiftly turn on my side and dive, so quickly, straight down like an arrow.

It's over- Elena moves to dodge me, but my talons catch her arm as I pull out of the dive and revert my form on my end of the arena.

Over. So quickly. Was Freya right about my caliber of magic? Is there truly no one who can challenge me, save for Morgana?

"Winner- Emrys!" Leon says clearly. The Druids roar and pound their feet against the stands. I've rarely heard them so riled up.

Princess Elena holds her bleeding arm, and smiles tightly at me. I have no doubt that it is heavily influenced by years of etiquette lessons. I wave a hand in her direction, and the scratch instantly heals.

"Well fought, my Lady," I say, a little guilty for drawing the blood of a woman.

"I appreciate your diplomacy, Merlin," Elena replies stiffly, "but I would prefer your honesty."

"All right then; you did _very well_," I insist. "Amazing, even. How long have you been using magic?"

Elena looks to the rose quartz, then to the box where I know Arthur is sitting. Her styled hair is loose and falls a little around her shoulders. "A few months, perhaps."

"Brilliant," I say firmly. "You're a natural, Elena."

She smiles and this time it is softer. I return it.

In the cheers, I smile, give a courteous wave to the stands that sends them into a tizzy, and go to return to my tent. Sir Leon catches my upper arm.

"Not just yet, Counselor," Leon says. "You have another competitor."

_Hello, Emrys._

A sharp ripple invades the magic of the field, and a hooded figure steps easily into place, flipping back his cowl as he draws back his shoulders.

Above the excited roar of the crowd, the furious rush of blood and magic in my ears, Sir Leon's unassuming voice rises up and announces the match;

"Round Twenty-Eight! Emrys, now with twelve victories, versus the Druid Mordred!"

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><p><strong>AN: Expect plenty of violence in the next chapter.**


	4. Contradictory Nonsense

**Emrys Emergent**

**Chapter Four: Contradictory Nonsense**

**by Tonzura123**

**Disclaimer: Nope.**

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><p>But Modred laid his ear beside the doors,<br>And there half-heard; the same that afterward  
>Struck for the throne, and striking found his doom.<p>

-The Coming of Arthur, Tennyson

* * *

><p><em>In the cheers, I smile, give a courteous wave to the stands that sends them into a tizzy, and go to return to my tent. Sir Leon catches my upper arm.<em>

_"Not just yet, Counselor," Leon says. "You have another competitor."_

Hello, Emrys.

_A sharp ripple invades the magic of the field, and a hooded figure steps easily into place, flipping back his cowl as he draws back his shoulders._

_Above the excited roar of the crowd, the furious rush of blood and magic in my ears, Sir Leon's unassuming voice rises up and announces the match;_

_"Round Twenty-Eight! Emrys, now with twelve victories, versus the Druid Mordred!"_

Leon does not even finish Mordred's name before the boy is sent skidding on his back into the stands, gouging up the packed earth into a sort of trench as he goes.

My hand is still outstretched and does not tremble at all. My breathing, though, has joined the corporeal, and chokes me as I drag on it. I dare not look away from Mordred's unmoving form to see Arthur's reaction. There's going to be a lot of explaining to do after this, I think wincingly. No one here has any idea what Mordred is capable of- What he's _destined _to do.

Leon gapes. Then, almost in question, points to me and says, "Foul?"

"Very," I reply, and wave my other hand at him.

With a pop, he vanishes. With another, his voice reappears high and far behind me, yelling about red cards. Arthur's voice, which is suspiciously close to Leon's, joins in.

I ignore them, Freya's words drumming in my ears like bloodlife. The idea that _this boy_ would go after Arthur's child is unforgivable. I barely realize that I have lifted Mordred's unconcious body in front of me so that it hovers, as loose as laundry hanging on a line. When I speak, my voice creaks with anger.

"Look well on this face," I say. My magic amplifies my choked words; even the deaf will hear this warning, even the blind will know him on sight. "Mordred is no friend to Camelot, but would see her King and Queen _dead_."

The Druids hiss together and the stands shout obsenities.

"Counselor!" Arthur barks, trying to order me into submission. Fat chance of that!

"Keep your distance, my King," I return, "This child is no innocent."

As if to prove it, Mordred's eyes flash open and he vanishes. Simply twists his magic out of my hold.

I freeze, then whirl with burning eyes to the awning where Arthur and Gwen rest. They look back on me with wide eyes, startled by my appearance- But no matter, because my target has reappeared on Arthur's left.

I fling a fatal hand at Mordred. A deep gouge appears in the intricately carved wood not inches from Arthur's head as the boy vanishes again. I spin in place, tracking that dark ripple that trips over itself and never stays in place, blocking out the sound of screams that come from the royal stands. Ladies faint all around, men jump to their feet in the confusion, a few children begin to cry. I am at the end of my rope.

"_Show yourself!"_

"Look well on _that_ face," comes Mordred's mocking voice from across the field. I brace my legs, call down lightning- but he has transported himself again. A large black burn smokes where he stood. An echo dances around the arena, ringing out, "_For he will demolish the balance of the world!"_

A razor sharp pain blooms across my cheek- I reach up to find blood as the shifting black bird crows in the sky. Snapping my fingers, thousands of bees crawl from the packed earth, swarming up at the mad-flapping bird.

Mordred drops- from bird to boy- and Shouts. It is one of his oldest moves- raw magic relinquished in every direction. Like with Elena, I am prepared for the blow. His dark magic washes like cold water over me, but my magic boils beneath, rolling his easily off. In the stands, people stumble and fly backwards and a few collapse where they stand. I do not need to look to know that Arthur has thrown himself over Gwen.

"Enough!" I yell, and drawing on all my magic, pull him out of time.

It is a purposefully rough transition; He stumbles into being across from me, and I watch with some cold satisfaction as he tries to vanish himself again. His face grows gradually whiter as he realizes-

"There is no _place_ outside of _time_," I clarify. Not for him, at least. "Trying to bolt will only wear you out."

"I can still see the arena," Mordred rasps. It strikes me that he, while much taller than our last encounter, still retains a young and relatively unchanged voice.

"It's only an imprint," I say disdainfully, "It's not actually there." At least, not for him.

Mordred shakes his head, not understanding, but I'm in no mood for magic lessons.

"I know why you're here, Mordred. But I am willing to show you mercy. You will leave Camelot, today, as soon as I set us back in time. You will never return. You will never attack Camelot's King or Queen ever again."

"Or else you'll kill me?" he asks, grinning like the idea is ridiculous.

In answer, I smile coldly, and allow my magic to rattle the image of the arena. Parts of the grass and people seem to blur and fall away, leaving nothing. Not black or white or grey: nothing. It's a rather rattling sight for first-timers. True to form, Mordred loses the last of his color and closes his eyes as he swallows.

"All right," he barely whispers, "All right."

"You'll leave Camelot?"

"Yes- All right. Yes."

"And never make an attempt on the lives of King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, or any of the royal household?"

"Yes!"

Suddenly, it seems to easy. I shake the world again until he's gasping for air, because there _is_ no air out of time. Not for him.

"Give me your _word_, Mordred."

"I- I give you my word..."

I land us heavily back in the arena. Mordred instantly gasps in the fresh air and sinks to his knees, trembling.

"Merlin!"

I turn to see Arthur running down from the stands, cape flying like a banner behind him. His worried face turns to exasperated respect as he comes at me. I smile, take a step towards him, and then the Druid Mordred begins to laugh.

He is still on his knees, still shaking, but I see now that it is with _humor_. The sharp edge to the cackles sends a chill up my back. Gasping, he turns those strange eyes up at me and _grins_.

"What's so funny?"

"You know your biggest flaw, Emrys?" Mordred asks. He reaches into his cloak to draw out a smooth black stone, the size of a coin. It sits flat in his palm, glistening in the spring afternoon. No- not glistening. Writhing. Dark ripples emenate from it. It is wrong.

I look up at Mordred again, and he smiles. "You're too _trusting_."

And he flips the writhing stone.

Something rips. My knees hit earth. My hands embrace air. There is screaming, but it isn't me, or Arthur, or any one of the fainting ladies. It is something far more ancient, tender, something that is peeled away from me like a giant and necessary leech. I am left bloodless, drained.

The world flips.

The sky is blue. White clouds dance over it. White fills my vision, the sun slowly blinding me. Black fills my vision, a golden head eclipses the light.

The eyes are blue. The mouth moves.

"Merlin," it says, "Merlin."

The imbalance has flipped.

I am Emrys no longer.

**OooOooOooOooO**

Smoke, herbs, sick.

"Gaius?" I ask. There is squealing wood on stone. A hot hand rests on my chest. "Gaius?"

"No, Merlin."

No Gaius. No Emrys.

No, Merlin.

I fall back into the close black.

**OooOooOooOooO**

"Let me do it." Felix's voice comes to me in a dream. "I have enough."

"No," an older voice, familiar, "One measure from you and you'd be dead. It wouldn't let him last longer than a few days."

"Is there no way?" Arthur's voice travels down Arthur's arm and into Arthur's hand, which cover's almost half of my chest in warmth. Arthur is not a small man. Arthur is not a cold man.

"What of Freya?" Gwen asks. "Merlin said she had powerful magic."

"In the Lake," Arthur agrees. "We were supposed to there in three days, Merlin said. On the half-moon. Perhaps she-"

"Look! Is he awake?" Felix interrupts, eyes wide.

"Merlin?" Arthur asks, leaning down.

Gwen lets out a small breath and shakes her head, "Its the same as before."

Arthur sets his jaw, "Come on, Merlin. It's rude to ignore your King."

"He hasn't even blinked."

"But he looks at whomever speaks, so he _must_ know what's happening!"

The weight on my chest grows a heartbeat that struggles against mine, knocking it around, speeding it up as the warm hand grows hot with blood. Arthur is not a cold man.

"What did he just say?" Gwen asks, startled. Felix and the old man with the familiar voice look at each other.

When they don't reply, Arthur turns to find them. "Well?"

"It's the Old Language, Sire." Felix admits. "I don't really-"

"'The Bear is not a cruel man'," says the old man with the familiar voice. "Or, rather, 'Arthur is not a cruel man.'"

"He knows Arthur," Gwen breathes. "Arthur, talk to him again-!"

Arthur leans in with blue eyes, pressing the hand hard onto my chest so that it aches.

"Dollophead. You have been sleeping far too long. After twelve rounds, you were defeated by a child. How does that make you feel?"

I could move mountains, but I cannot move mountains. Something ancient and tender.

Nobody in the room moves. Then-

"Whoa!" says Felix, stepping closer in amazement.

"What on earth is he saying _now?"_

"'Gaia has turned her face'," says the old man, rushed and breathless, "'And all the was is not, all the was not is. All things hidden revealed. All things powerful made low. In a time when all time dies, all men beasts, all beasts men, and all manner of the world turned, the immortal will die, and the dead will become immortal.'"

I cannot move. I could move. Leeching and necessary.

"What kind of _nonsense-?"_

"A prophecy!" Felix exclaims.

"He's raving!" Arthur says, "It's just like when he burst in on the court all those years ago. How does any of that amount to anything? It's all contradictory nonsense!"

"It sounds important," Gwen allows. She raises a hand to her full belly, but I doubt she realizes it.

Arthur pauses, turns burning eyes, like lightning down at me. "What did he say then?"

The old man hesitates. "That depends, Sire."

"On what?"

"On whether or not your majesty would like to know the gender of his child."

"Well, of _course_-" Gwen starts, stepping forward with both hands on her flat stomach now, her face alight with motherly adoration.

"No." Arthur says. Gwen stops dead. Turns confused eyes on him.

"No?"

"No."

The Queen's face grows dangerous with an ancient fury. There is more than one Bear in the room. "Why not, Arthur?"

"Because there is simply too much at stake," Arthur replies, heartbeat in hand forcing my breath, "The less we know about this child, the better."

"Better how?" Gwen asks, "Better in case we lose it, you mean?"

Arthur stands. I am cold. Arthur is not a cold man. I ache.

"No, Merlin." Felix slides next to me, warily eyeing the royal couple as they face off across the room, speaking in low and tight voices. Felix's hand is small and cool. "Gaius isn't here, Merlin."

The old man with the familiar voice comes closer, giving Gwen and Arthur the illusion of privacy as he leans over me, touches my eyelids, lays a weathered hand on my forehead. The dark eyes smile gently. Death becomes him.

Felix looks up in alarm at the old man with the familiar voice. The old man with the familiar voice looks back.

"Did he say what I think he said?" Felix asks.

"He calls for his father," says the old man with the familiar voice heavily. "He mistakes me for him."

Felix withers his brow, "Merlin doesn't have a father."

"Every man has a father. Even men like Merlin."

If Balinor is resurrected, am I a Dragon Lord still? Or does the Dragon lord me again? Does Destiny ever rewind? Counselor to servant, servant to boy, and boy to babe? And then- What comes before? Am I only a prophecy now?

"That's... not the Old Language."

"Dragontongue!" exclaims the old man with the familiar voice. "Why, I have not heard that language for decades!"

"He used it on you in the arena," Felix reminds him. "And then you fainted."

"Did he?" asks the old man with the familiar voice, "I barely recall those last moments."

Arthur raises his voice. Gwen raises hers right back. I cannot hear them. Felix's face grows shadows. The room grows dark. The world is darkness. I am nothing.

**OooOooOooOooO**

Out of the long night of twisted dreams, I wake again to a soft mouth on mine and the warmth of the sun shining through my eyelids.

Disoriented, I first think of Freya. But I realize that I can hear her voice beyond as these lips so easily steal my breath. And the feeling that is slowly filling me up is nothing like water. Rather, it reminds me of a fickle fire.

"That should be enough," Freya's voice says tartly. The mouth on mine smiles, places one last peck in the corner of my lips, and vanishes.

In the following silence, I can hear my heartbeat grow stronger. I feel warm. Such warmth that I cannot remember ever having.

Freya ventures to speak again, as stern as any elemental has the right to be, "Remember our bargain."

"I remember," replies the second voice sweetly. "And I look forward to you holding up your end of it."

I can _sense _Freya nodding, and practically see her face as she turns to me, _Farewell, dear heart... _The echo of her voice disappears in the rush of wind through the trees, in the lapping of water on sand, and the call of birds to the rising sun.

"Can I look, yet?" comes Arthur's unexpected voice.

"You can look whenever you want, Arthur," says the sweet voice in a far less sweet tone. Indeed, it sounds annoyed. "In fact, I'd rather you did so that you can look where you're going. It's a long haul back to Camelot from here." Soft hands pat my face, trying to rouse me. I turn my head away and wish for silence so I can draw back that sweet echo on the water.

"I'm carrying him," Arthur says sternly. His boots thud through the sand. Some of it flies onto my trouser leg, getting everywhere, scratchy against my skin.

"Be my guest."

Large, warm hands replace the soft ones. I can hear the creak from the leather gloves, the hard grip on my upper arms as my friend lifts me up and over his shoulder like a sack of grain.

I groan at the movement and a large hand covers my back, "Easy, Merlin. I've got you."

"Don't drop him, brother dear," says the voice. Footsteps carry away from where I dangle. I feel Arthur take a deep breath and pat my leg.

"This is going to be a long fortnight, old friend."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I think you can guess who was kissing whom at the end there. If not, prepared to be blown away by the next chapter, with the pending title, "In Which Arthur Pendragon Explains a Good Deal Because He is Tired and Would Very Much Like to Sleep."**

**Like it, hate it, utterly confused by it? Drop a message or review!**

**Thanks for reading!**

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**


	5. In Which Arthur Explains A Good Deal

**Emrys Emergent**

**Chapter Five: In Which Arthur Explains a Good Deal **

**by Tonzura123**

**Disclaimer: I disclaim Tennyson, Sir Thomas Mallory, BBC, and Gerald Morris. I am none of these, nor do I own any of these. **

**(Technically.)**

* * *

><p>"So Merlin riddling angered me; but thou<br>Fear not to give this King thine only child,  
>Guinevere: so great bards of him will sing<br>Hereafter..."  
>-The Coming of Arthur, Tennyson<p>

* * *

><p><em>Large, warm hands replace the soft ones. I can hear the creak from the leather gloves, the hard grip on my upper arms as my friend lifts me up and over his shoulder like a sack of grain. <em>

_I groan at the movement and a large hand covers my back, "Easy, Merlin. I've got you."_

_"Don't drop him, brother dear," says the voice. Footsteps carry away from where I dangle. I feel Arthur take a deep breath and pat my leg._

_"This is going to be a long fortnight, old friend."_

As it turns out, me _not _speaking bothers Arthur more than me speaking, so I decide to keep completely mum until we break for camp later that evening, as the dusk is bloodying the sky through the black break of twisting tree limbs above.

Now, when I woke earlier at the Lake, Arthur had strictly ordered me to tell him when I felt any unusual pains. Flares or pricks or anything of that sort. But I knew what confessing that would mean. And also, I still hadn't forgiven him for pairing up with Morgana.

"You're being a baby," Arthur grunted, jogging me higher up his shoulder as he stepped cautiously over a root. "A baby _girl_. This is about diplomacy, _Mer_lin, not namby-pamby quarrels over who used who's dress."

_Get used to it, Clodpole! _I had thought furiously, face already beet red from being upside-down for so long. Still, I said nothing.

I could barely hear Morgana walking ahead. I wondered if it was a spell she had learned, or if she had only gotten very good at sneaking around. Practice makes perfect, and all that...

For a long time, I bounced along, viewing the topsy-turvy world with no small amount of nausea. In truth, I ached all over. I felt very sick and very, very weak. But I wasn't about to tell Arthur because I wasn't about to lock lips with a Witch again.

Eventually, Arthur had called for rest for the night and now Morgana is seated across from me, turning the rabbits over on the spit. A black riding cloak is tucked around her and her hair is tied back in a loose braid. The firelight, enchanted as it may be, seems to soften her angular features, but I know better.

Arthur rests at my side. He has done the hunting. He has carried me for who knows how many leagues. As far as he is concerned, his duties are finished for the day.

"What herb is that?" he asks her, as she sprinkles a finely powdered substance over the sizzling meat. His words sound a little stiff and unused. Maybe even a little unsure- like small talk had somehow metamorphosed into a terrible beast.

"Either colliander or oleander," she remarks off-handedly. "I can never tell them apart."

She enjoys baiting him, but she is as rusty at drawing his anger as he is at making peace with her. They retreat into a ruling silence. The fire pops and cracks. The woods hold a silence reverence in the aftermath of a half-moon.

The smell of the meat finds my nose. I can't help but gag a little. Arthur is immediately with me.

"I don't think your cooking suits him!" Arthur says to Morgana as his hand worries at my arm.

Morgana shows no concern at all. She slowly spins the meat, seeing something far off. "He doesn't have to eat it."

"He hasn't eaten in days!" Arthur says, and turns very seriously to me. "You _will _eat."

Even the thought is too much to get down. Arthur turns me onto my side so that I can vomit outside of our camp circle. It is very clear that I will _not_ eat tonight.

"Lovely," Morgana says. "I'm not kissing him again until he washes out his mouth."

To make my point, I spit in the fire. Morgana's light eyes snap up like coals and I meet them with all the contempt and defiance that I can muster. Arthur comes between us, voice reaching out into the night like the King he is;

"We, both sides, have agreed to peace. We _will not break that oath_."

Morgana and I look do not away. But eventually she attends to the rabbit and I go back to staring out into the growing darkness of the wood.

Morgana and Arthur speak a little, away from me, fairly cordial. I drift a little, in and out of the stilted conversation. At some point, soft footsteps sound and softer lips find mine. Before I can turn my head away, they are gone and I have suddenly drifted again to a point late into the night, when the fire is a low glow and Arthur is resting beside me again with Excalibur crossed over his chest: on watch.

I crane my head to look over at the black form of Morgana, sleeping soundly across from us. I wonder if I dreamt it.

"You're awake again?" Arthur asks softly, never looking away from the darkness.

I forget my oath for silence and nod, "Yeah."

"I'm glad," Arthur says. "It's been very awkward trying to talk to a person who wants to kill you."

"How do you know I don't share the sentiment?"

"Just you try," Arthur retorts. "You scared Guinevere. And Felix."

"When we get home, I'll tell her I'm sorry."

Arthur is quiet for a long moment. "Guinevere isn't _at_ home."

"What? Where is she?"

"The woman- Freya. She took her somewhere safe."

I crane my neck and look at Arthur. "Just how much have I missed?"

"Three days," Arthur replies. "A long three days."

"Well, let's hear it, then," I say, finding that I have the strength to wriggle over until I'm facing him, and he is staring down at me with no little incredulity.

"I'm not about to give you a bedtime story, _Mer_lin."

"It's not like you're especially busy at the moment," I say.

"I'm _on watch_!" Arthur says, scandalized. Watch is extremely important to knights. Whoever finds themselves with watch at night will inevitably hear suspicious noises or see creeping shapes and get up to investigate, which in turn can lead to mauling or kidnapping or sometimes the witnessing of an evil conversation between Camelot's greatest enemies, who all make sure to wear dark-toned cloaks. It's a very adventuresome exploit in Camelot.

"What happened to me, Arthur?" I ask. When he turns away and shifts his sword, I continue, "I can't feel anything."

He turns back quickly. "Morgana said-"

"My body feels everything," I correct bitterly, and he relaxes a fraction. "Everything but magic."

"Yes," Arthur nods carefully. "I know."

"I've tried reaching for it, only to find I don't know how to reach. The memory of it is so clear, the reflex is still there, but there's nothing to flex. Nothing to find. It's like taking a step and missing a stair."

"You would be familiar with that," Arthur says quietly, the joke falling short. He looks at me with a little wonder, but the strange amputation leaves me fearless and desperate.

"Arthur, _please_."

For a long stretch of silence, moist cool in the air of the wood, dry heat at the fireside, and the longing bay of a wolf (or else something more were than wolf) from miles away.

Arthur sighs, "Where would you like to start?"

"How about why your sister keeps snogging me?"

Arthur makes a face. "Fine. But just so you know, there's a lot to cover here that I may not be able to get at right now. Just listen."

I nod and Arthur begins.

**OooOooOooOooO**

_After waiting for three days, fearful that you were well beyond any sort of aid- magic or no- Gwen and I went to the Lake like you told us to. Despite Gwaine's and Elyan's and even Felix' adamant desire to join, we were completely alone for the journey, except for you, who were hanging off of my shoulder. By the way, you weigh about as much as a young whale. _

_Anyway. We reached it in a matter of hours by extremely brisk walking. I admit we had not expected anyone else but Freya to be there. I was mistaken._

_"Stay your sword, Arthur Pendragon," Morgana said, raising her open palms to me in a gesture that often began a spell, "I come bearing no malice."_

_"Only witchcraft," I retorted, moving to stand in front of Gwen and easing you to the ground so that I was free to fight unhindered. Seriously, you are very heavy._

_Morgana, interestingly enough, smiled at my words. "I hear you've taken the side of magic in the last week," she said a little proudly._

_"Of good magic."_

_"Magic is magic. Good and bad are relative."_

_"I disagree."_

_Now Morgana laughed, "So, with Uther magic was all bad, and now with you it's divided into halves? What will the next generation think, I wonder?" she asked, looked directly at Gwen's stomach. "I can easily believe that the 'third time's the charm' as they say."_

_"Leave her out of this," I growled._

_Gwen spoke, quickly, "Morgana, what do you want?"_

_"Peace," Morgana said. Her mocking face seemed to close off. "Just peace."_

_"Peace!" I said, "You who waged war after war on Camelot? Murdering its people, razing its earth? Lie to me again, Witch."_

_"Gladly," Morgana said, "You're looking well, Arthur."_

_Which was just insulting._

_But before I could make what would have been an extremely witty and no doubt wounding remark, the placid surface of the lake began to churn like the waters in a great cauldron, and the lake began to boil, steam shooting up and falling out like a thick fog, covering us in a shroud, and a comely figure slowly emerging from the black of the water, her hair dripping and her eyes dry. She walked through the water like walking through air, stopping when it reached her waist. Long dark hair fell down her back, a dress of royalty swimming on the writhing surface. _

_"Freya?" I asked. I had been prepared for magic. Or, at least, I had thought I was prepared. She spoke no spell, but she was dripping with power._

_"That is my name," she said, in a surprisingly kindly voice and a sweet smile. She turned her face over the waters, sighting you and looking greatly saddened._

_"Can you heal him?" I asked hopefully. "He said to come here on the half-moon- that you would protect Gwen and our child from Mordred."_

_"Bring him to me?" she asked. Her voice might have been a child's. Or a lover's._

_I sheathed my sword to do so, but a strong hand fell to my arm, and I was shocked to find Morgana gently restraining me._

_"You must not," she said. "It is not his time. And you, Freya, should not ask for him so early."_

_"He should not look so," Freya said miserably. "Dear Heart, what has happened to you?"_

_"Why can't she see him?" Gwen whispered to me, but it was Morgana that answered._

_"If she takes Merlin, you won't get him back," Morgana said. "She is so jealous of him. It would be too much of a temptation, to even lay hands on him for a moment."_

_"One day," said Freya, "That time will come. But the Lady Morgana is right. It is not his time to leave your world."_

_"Our world?" Gwen whispered again at my back. I shook my head, and neither Freya nor Morgana answered to it. _

_"There is a way of healing him,__"__ Freya assured me. "That is why the Lady Morgana has answered my summons: to kiss him awake."_

_"To what who, now?" I asked. Morgana smirked at me while Freya gave me a look of gentle pity._

_"It is not an ancient Magic," Freya admitted. "Nothing so ancient or true that will keep Merlin sustained for long. But it would be much like a Medic taping shut a wound, Arthur Pendragon, when a Physician is not at hand."_

_"Morgana is not a medic," I said, enunciating very clearly and somehow more aware than ever that Morgana had very cold eyes. "She is a dangerous, deluded, ambidextrous Witch."_

_"And your blood," Freya returned shortly. "As for the use of a left hand, I would think a King would be above such stupid superstition."_

_"It's scientifically proven," I muttered. Gwen stirred beside me, where she was watching over you, Merlin, on the sandy bank of the lake. _

_"If it's only temporary, then does that mean Morgana will always have to be with him?"_

_"I don't even understand why this is necessary," I said. "Men like me live without magic every day. Why can't Merlin?"_

_"I'm only going to say this once," Morgana spoke. She unfolded herself from her black cloak and pointed a white finger down at you, which I have to admit put me on edge. "Merlin _was_ Emrys. Emrys is the Battleman, the Fireshow, the Creature of Magic that was born out of magic. Bards and prophets have been waiting for him for centuries."_

_"And here he is," I said. You looked like anything _but_ a fireshow at that moment. A far cry from the arena or from Mordred after his transformation-_

**OooOooOooOooO**

"Wait," I interrupt Arthur there, trying to sit up a little higher. "What do you mean 'Mordred's _transformation_?' What happened, exactly, after I got knocked out?"

"I'll go back to that," Arthur promises shortly. "Now shut up and listen."

**OooOooOooOooO**

_As I said, a far cry from the arena or from Mordred after his transformation. I honestly thought he'd killed you. You didn't move and your skin was grey. The only way we'd known he'd failed in his mission was because he'd sworn and said he'd have to try again before he'd vanished._

_But Morgana shook her head at me, like I was demented._

_"The Device Mordred used-"_

_"-What, the rock?"_

_She pursed her lips. "The _Device_ Mordred used changes the state of things. Completely. It can change whole worlds at a time. If you met a perfectly normal and kind man and used the Device on him, it would turn him foul and arrogant and maybe even into a murder. Use it on a murderer and you might get a hero. "_

_Morgana shrugged, "To be honest, it's not very accurate. There are so many opposites to things that it usually just chooses at random. A world of fire into a world of ice. Or maybe no world at all. It likes degrees."_

_"And just how did he get his grubby orphan hands on it?" I asked._

_Freya stepped forward, "That is not what we are here to discuss."_

_"_You _didn't-" Gwen started in fear, looking at the Lady with wide eyes._

_"Not her," Morgana said. "Me."_

_I drew my sword at once. I don't think I have to tell you, Merlin, that this didn't impress her at all. It was really rather insulting._

_"We're wasting time," she said, brushing by me to kneel at your side._

_"Queen Guinevere," the Lady said, "You will come with me."_

_"What?" Gwen and I asked in tandem. I gripped her hand hard, and my chest became very tight._

_"Mordred has not finished. To keep Emrys immortal, he must take a life that has never lived."_

_"Merlin said the same," Gwen murmured, distressed. Her free hand cradled her stomach, which was not an impressive bulge or even a bump, but a soft and easy terrain. _

_"Why should Mordred want to keep Merlin immortal if the whole plot was to kill him?" I asked._

_"Merlin is Emrys no longer," Morgana said from your side. _

_"Would you stop that?" I snapped. She coolly took her hands out of your hair and left you be. "How can he suddenly _not_ be Emrys? He said he was!"_

_"Gaia has turned her face," Freya said. "The Device has been turned. All that was, is not, and all that was not, is. Merlin was Emrys, but no longer. "_

_"So Merlin isn't Emrys," I said, "But Mordred wants to keep Emrys immortal?"_

_"Merlin was Emrys and now is not. Mordred was not Emrys..." Freya did not continue. She reached forward and took Gwen's hand off of her belly, and pulled it gently towards the surface of the lake. "It is not safe for you, my Queen."_

_"How do we know we can trust Morgana, of all people?" I demanded. Freya turned in the water, her eyes steely._

_"Merlin has entrusted you to me." Freya seemed to swell with the tide, and all matter of water seemed to at once heat and freeze, snow and rain driving in sheets across the lake. "And I have entrusted you to Morgana, because she is _trustworthy_ and more than capable of keeping Merlin alive for one fortnight."_

_"One fortnight?" I asked. "What happens in one fortnight?"_

_"A miracle," Freya and Morgana answered as one. They said it so earnestly. And I may be wrong, but it felt like something ringing was sitting inside of that word. Something warm, mellow, and golden. Something razor-hot. Something true._

_Gwen shook her head, "I can't just leave Arthur-"_

_But I had made up my mind. And as King, I knew it was important to see my decision through, with the weight of failure on myself and no other._

_"You know you can," I said. I embraced her, and she hung onto my neck as we said goodbye as married couples often do, with sadness and savage pride in one another. And maybe more than a little kissing, but I'm not about to tell you about _that_, _Mer_lin._

_"Be safe," Gwen told me, and I assured her I would before asking the same of her. Then Lady Freya took her by the hand and walked into the lake until the water covered their heads, and I saw my wife turn back once to wave at me before the water swirled and they were gone down a dark and magic hall to the Otherworld._

_Morgana and I stood in absolute silence, both of us staring at your grey face. _

_"So, Mordred is Emrys now?" I asked, for clarification._

_Morgana nodded. "Immortal, all-powerful, and beyond time."_

_"Fantastic."_

_There was a surprising camaraderie to be found in the awkward silence we shared. Once, I glanced over to look at her, and discovered that she was looking back up at me and smiled like... Like something familiar and faded._

"_If I swear to peace," Morgana said, "Will you accept it?"_

"_As long as you do the cooking," I replied._

_The waters boiled a second time, and Freya's dark head rose from the waves, her dress gliding on the waters as she stepped to the very edges of the lapping edges of foam and we could see her entirety._

_"Wait a minute," cried Morgana, suddenly outraged. "That's _my_ dress!"_

_"We haven't the time," Freya said primly, and a little quickly, some red in her cheeks. "If you fulfill your end of the bargain, then I shall fulfill mine."_

_Morgana opened her mouth to reply, paused, and looked down at you before saying, "Deal." And she leaned down and kissed you._

_I had avoided my eyes, because there are some things I'd rather never see, but then there was a soft gasp of air, and I turned immediately. Your eyelids were shuddering, and all color and movement slowly seeping back into you, all the while Morgana leaned over you and kept kissing you, a faint gold light spilling out of her eyes. It was frankly embarrassing__._

_"That should be enough," Freya said tartly._

**OooOooOooOooO**

"I remember that part," I say. Some melancholy has found me where I lie. Arthur doesn't appear to be any better off. "And Gwen? We'll return for her in a fortnight?"

Arthur shifts against the tree. "I don't know."

"Why not?"

"Probably because a lot of this relies on defeating Mordred now, I guess," Arthur mutters. I can see a cut of his blue eyes in the firelight, where they burn through the trees and challenge the shades and spirits that haunt them.

"We'll beat him," I say immediately. "You haven't lost a fight yet."

"I'm discovering that this may not rely entirely on my military prowess," Arthur says lightly, reminding me that—oh, yes—he usually has magic on his side. The very magic that we're about to fight against.

"I don't care what it takes," I insist. "We _will_ defeat Mordred."

"That we will," says Morgana. Arthur and I jump—or, at least, Arthur jumps and I let out a completely manly yelp. Neither of us had realized she'd walked over and sat between us. But here she is, and here we are, and she's smirking so widely that it can almost encompass all her smug. Stupid sneaky witch."Trouble sleeping, gentlemen?"

"I'm on the night watch," Arthur says defensively.

"Yes," Morgana agrees, "You're very perceptive, after all."

"Here's what I'm curious to know," I say, while Arthur folds into himself and tries not to blush, "Why are you helping us? What are you getting out of it?"

"Oh, I'm getting a few things."

"Camelot? Power? More eye makeup?"

Morgana turns a very cold eye on me, her lip curling. "Suffice to say, nothing that endangers your precious Camelot."

"We'll see about that," I reply, returning the look.

Arthur clears his throat.

"How did Mordred get the Device from you?" I ask her. "I doubt he had to use force."

"He stole it," Morgana says, so quickly and exasperatedly that truth rings in it. "I found it and he stole it from me."

I smirk. "You mean he got past your fantastic security?"

"I mean," says Morgana, "That after living with me for a year, he found out where I'd hidden it and took it. I trusted him and he stabbed me in the back. Happy?"

"Content, at the very least," I smile.

"Wait, living with you in your hovel?" Arthur interrupted. "Why?"

"Because he was training," Morgana replied. "I was his Master of Magic."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Sorry for the long wait! There's still more to Morgana's story (when is there not?) and expect plenty of Arthur-Merlin bro-ventures!**

**Questions, comments, rude remarks? Feel free to PM or review. **

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**


	6. Bar Songs and Backlashes

**Emrys Emergent**

**Chapter Six: Bar Songs and Backlashes**

**by Tonzura123**

**Disclaimer: I think I'm closer to being C.S Lewis than I am to being BBC. I'm only one person, after all.**

* * *

><p>"'The enchantress who cares for no one cannot be touched by grief or worry or fear. Nothing reduces a sorceress's power so much as love,'"<p>

-Morgan Le Fay, The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf by Gerald Morris

* * *

><p><em>"How did Mordred get the Device from you?" I ask her. "I doubt he had to use force."<em>

_"He stole it," Morgana says, so quickly and exasperatedly that truth rings in it. "I found it and he stole it from me."_

_I smirk. "You mean he got past your fantastic security?"_

_"I mean," says Morgana, "That after living with me for a year, he found out where I'd hidden it and took it. I trusted him and he stabbed me in the back. Happy?"_

_"Content, at the very least," I smile._

_"Wait, living with you in your hovel?" Arthur interrupted. "Why?"_

_"Because he was training," Morgana replied. "I was his Master of Magic."_

The idea that Morgana, High Priestess of the Old Religion, Ex-Ward of Uther Pendragon, Avenger Extraordinaire, had decided to teach Mordred (of all murdering tykes) how to use magic is just a little too much to swallow all in one go. So Arthur and I decide to sleep on it.

We discover that waking up with it isn't much better.

"She was his Master of Magic!" I explode at Arthur, once the sun begins to light the woods between the boughs and the birds begin to sing off-key above us. Morgana is elsewhere, anywhere than here. "Her! Morgana!"

It was the theme of every single one of my dreams. Several of them ended in gore. Only one evaded death, but it went awry at the introduction of a stoat into the middle of the frenzy, ending with my marriage to a large green pumpkin with Morgana's smirking face instead. I am still mentally debating whether that dream wasn't the worst after all. All this kissing is ruining what little sanity I have. As if our Emrys problem wasn't big enough.

"Very good, Merlin," says Arthur, sitting up and rubbing his forehead with Excalibur's pommel. "You've learned simple English."

"Things like this don't just happen!" I exclaim, while Arthur rolls me over and hoists me up, still yawning. "It can't be coincidence!"

"Morgana said it herself," Arthur grunts, lifting me over his broad shoulders and turning to grab up his satchel. "Mordred tricked her."

"Doesn't that seem a little convenient?"

"Honestly, I don't see anything convenient about it. She's stuck helping us and she lost her little bid at power to a twelve year old. Stop being so paranoid."

I scowl and kick my legs a little. Arthur smacks me.

"Knock it off, Merlin."

"She's tried to kill you!"

"Merlin..."

"Arthur," comes Morgana's voice.

Arthur turns to face her, and I stare at her upside-down from around Arthur's middle back. She's pulled her hair up and out of the way this morning, her black cloak still in place, and her sneering smirk still grating on my nerves. Though, from this angle, it's more of a sneering frown.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

I can feel Arthur shift his weight to his right foot- settling in for a verbal spar.

"It's called morning routine, Morgana," he replies on cue. "Waking up, moving on and all that. We have to get back to Camelot by tomorrow morning, at least."

Morgana nods, still smirking. "And Merlin has to be carried, because...?"

"Because he's a wilting flower," Arthur says. I wriggle again.

"I think you'll find he's fully capable of walking, Brother Dear."

Arthur stills, and I still with him.

"What?"

Her sneering frown seems to double. "Did you think I was kissing him for fun? He's almost healthier than you by now."

Arthur and I pause to consider this. Then, very awkwardly, he shifts his weight again so that my feet settle on the ground, pushing the rest of me off of his shoulder. He lets his hand hover by me for a moment, but I have no trouble standing on my own and he takes an experimental step away. When I don't wilt like a trodden flower, we look at each other for a moment.

"Ah," Arthur says. He recovers quickly, adding, "The next village is about a half a league from here. Think you can walk that far?"

I bounce a little on my feet, testing my new strength. It's a little like when you're getting over being ill, the muscles are all there, they all respond, but you can just sense that lingering potential for weakness that makes you move a little slower than average.

"Yes," I say, surprised. Privately, so Morgana doesn't overhear, I turn to my King. "Actually, I feel like I might be able to walk all the way home like this."

Morgana swings her own black bag over her shoulder and brushes by us.

"No chance of that," she says. "A rainstorm will hit us in the next few hours."

Arthur looks up at the peeking blue through the green canopy of the forest, and then glances at me. I shrug.

**OoOoOoOoOoO**

_One moment, you were standing, looking at Mordred like he was the dirt beneath your boots, and the next you were flattened by this wave of- Of something like wind, something hot like fire, and bending like water. It knocked the air out of my gut like a rock. Mordred was standing over you... transformed somehow. Less than human. Worse than a monster and much more like a demon. _

_He was so disappointed that you weren't dead._

_You asked for Gaius a lot. And your father. Master Bleys helped us care for you- I think your situation made you see things that weren't there. You spoke in languages I've never heard. Felix understood some, Master Bleys understood a little more. _

_You called for the father you never knew in Dragontongue, Merlin. You called for Gaius, who had long since passed from our world. _

_I may not be a sorcerer, but what would have happened, do you think, if you had still been Emrys when you called for them in the language of magic?_

**OoOoOoOoOoO**

Morgana was right- three or four hours into our trek, the heavens were awash with grey, rumbling waves of vapor. Another hour and they opened up on us like a floodgate, immediately soaking us. Arthur, who was in armor at the time, got the worst of it; the water fell inside of his breastplate and weighed down his chainmail. I was shivering under my jacket. Morgana seemed to have cast some sort of spell on herself to repel the water. Her hair was consistently immaculate. But when the rain started falling horizontally, our soaked little party decided it was best to surrender and regroup.

"Two rooms, please," Arthur says wearily, slapping coins with abandon onto the counter. A large and angry-looking woman dries a chipped mug behind it, unimpressed.

"No rooms," she grunts, slamming the mug down and picking up another. A cockroach zips up her arm and out of sight. I can feel Arthur shudder beside me and hear Morgana make a disgusted sound behind us.

"Surely there must be somewhere we can rest," Arthur insists. He almost has to yell, because the men at the tables have started an uproarious drinking song about a woman called Bertha that had two hundred goats and sold each one for a mug of ale. The melody was surprisingly catchy, but I think I'm more impressed that the patrons know how to count backwards from two hundred with three or four pints washing out their insides.

The bar woman grunts again. "Only place left 'round here would be the stables, but-"

"-_THAT WOMAN, THAT BERTHA, WITH ONE-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY-NINE GOATS, DRANK DOWN HER MUG AND TRADED ANUTH'R!"_

"We'll take it," Arthur cuts in.

The woman shrugs and wipes his coins off the counter into the mug she was cleaning. The cockroach reappears to wave his little antennae at us. "They're around back. A stall or two should be half-empty."

"Half-empty?" Morgana echoes. A drunken man stumbles into her and she pushes him effortlessly away with one hand. "We're expected to sleep with animals?"

"Why is this inn so full, anyway?" Arthur wonders.

_"-THAT WOMAN, THAT BERTHA, WITH ONE-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY-EIGHT GOATS, DRANK DOWN HER MUG AND TRADED ANUTH'R!"_

"Some tournament up at the castle," the bar woman says. "Magic competition or somat."

I have to laugh at the irony of our situation, but it quickly becomes a groan, an empty bite of missing magic flashing through me, "Oooh, I _told_ you it was a bad idea..."

"Shut up," Arthur tells me. The bar woman seems to notice me for the first time, and gives me a stern once-over, taking in my peaky coloring and general boniness like she's appraising livestock.

"If your friend's ill, I'd rather he keep from the horses. Disease is bad for customers," the woman scowls at me, cockroach now exploring the underside of her chin.

"I am the picture of health," I say, leaning heavily on the counter. My body is starting to feel heavy from the long and rather damp walk. My ears feel full of water. I wink exaggeratedly at the bar-woman. "Thank you for serving your kingdom, Madam."

A smooth hand finds my ear and pulls me away sharply. I yelp and twist out of Morgana's hold.

"He's fine," Morgana lies smoothly, ignoring the bar woman's look of vague curiosity. "Just a fool."

I turn on her, irritated. "I'll show _you_ a fool!"

"If you could just show us those stables," Arthur finishes weakly, "I'd be eternally grateful."

To a rousing end of the sixty-ninth verse of Bertha, the bar woman leaves her counter and takes us back out into the storm from the back entrance, leading us around to the low stables, which are really more of a rocky outcrop with half-rotted wood supporting it. Two large carthorses, a gelding, and four mares crowd the "stalls" which smell of animal and decay and excrement, even through the terror of the rainstorm. She bids us a goodnight and lets us know she appreciates our business. Then she leaves us.

While the bar-woman trudges away, we three stare at our new resting place with no little dismay.

"I don't suppose," I say slowly, watching debris trickle like a flooded river from the roof of the outcropping, "That we've any chance of finding another inn farther down the road?"

"No," Arthur says. He looks like he'd like to just step inside, lie down, and be done with it. But he doesn't move.

"I wish I knew a cleaning spell," Morgana muses.

I look at her. "You don't know cleaning spells?"

She sneers. "You think, just because I'm a woman that I should know how to mop and clean and other useless feminine things with magic?"

"Well, for one," I retort, "It doesn't seem so very feminine or useless right now."

The horses whinny. One farts.

"For another," I continue, "I know several."

Morgana stares at me. Arthur looks like a man who has reached a point where nothing can shock him.

"I have several witty things to say about that," he says. "But I don't feel like saying them right now."

"It's your own fault, you prat," I say genially, thinking of the last time I had to clean his boots.

"Well, come on then," Morgana says to me. "Name them so we can all go to sleep and get out of this accursed rain."

"What scent?" I ask politely. Morgana stares at me. Arthur snickers.

"What?"

"What scent?" I repeat. "You can have cleaning spells that smell like lilies or roses or fresh hay, even. A full-scour usually comes out as daisies, though. Not sure why."

"Merlin, as your Lord and Sovereign, I think it's only fair to warn you," Arthur says. "You can't possibly go around spouting things like that and not expect people to take the mickey out of you for being a girl."

Lightning splits the sky. Morgana shouts over the rain, her immaculate hair beginning to frizz, "I don't care what they smell like. Just name one."

"There's Ronklesmat," I say. "It's an all-purpose."

"There's no such word," she says disdainfully.

"Ronklesmat," I snap, gut jumping, "is _so_ a word. It's idiomatic."

"I'm a High Priestess of the Old Religion; if I say it isn't a spell, then that's it. Give me another."

"I thought you didn't know nay cleaning spells?"

"I don't, but even Arthur could know magic from complete nonsense."

"Oy!"

"Just say it!"

"I'm not saying some nonsense word!"

"Just wave your hand," I say, waving my own flippantly at the stables, "And say, 'Ronklesmat'!"

Dry heat like fire wells up and snaps out of me. There is a crack like a second lightning strike. The horses begin to rear, screaming, and my vision goes rapidly out, in, and out again.

Someone is calling for me and I turn my head, feel a hand over my chest. My back feels cold- wet. Lips close over mine as the tide swims around me, and fire mixes with water until my vision is fogged and something spills from my eyes. The voice is still speaking, the lips are still pressing, I can hear my heartbeat mix with the hollow reverberations of Gaia, the thunder of the open sky, the shudder of the woods around us.

"-Merlin!"

Arthur jumps into focus so quickly that I have to blink several times. He's holding out his hand, and I reach up and grab him around the wrist, expecting to be heaved to my feet. Instead, he peels my hand off and pushes me back against a soft and sweet-smelling surface.

"You stay where you are!" Arthur barks, so furious that I blanch a little. "What did you think you were doing?"

"Doing?" I wonder. The roof above us is a pale wood, daisy flowers sprouting from the boughs of the supporting beams. I can hear the rush of rain off of the ceiling. A shadow steps closer to a large fire that burns in the grate, pale hands tugging on a black cloak, trembling. "Arthur, what happened?"

"He doesn't know," says Morgana quietly. She keeps her back to us by the fire. "It figures. The fool."

"The fool would rather like to know what you two are talking about," I say. "Did we find another inn after all?"

"In a manner of speaking," Arthur growls. "You grew one out of the ground."

I blink at him. "I what?"

"It looks like your nonsense word was _some_ kind of spell," Morgana says, "Though I'm still wondering how a cleaning spell could make all of this." She puts out her hands to turn them over the merry flames in the grate. "The spell exceeded the magic you had."

"I don't have any magic," I say. "Mordred made sure of that."

"What do you think I'm doing when I kiss you?" Morgana wonders. She turns towards us at last, and I go still, trying not the stare at the thick stripe of white that has worked its way into her wild black hair. She picks it up with a shaking hand and tugs on it. "I'm giving you my magic. My life force. It's supposed to be used to keep you alive. It's not meant for spell work."

I swallow. "I didn't' mean to-"

"-You can't say spells," Morgana says. "You can't even _think_ them. I can't spare that much."

"But-"

"I swear, Merlin, if you don't listen to her..." Arthur cuts in from beside me. His face is a stark white. I don't think he realizes that his hand is crushing mine.

"No magic," Morgana says.

I meet her eyes, feeling strange and hollow. "No magic."

No magic. No Emrys.

No Merlin.

I might as well be dead.

**OoOoOoOoOoO**

The inn I made has several rooms.

There's a large kitchen downstairs that Arthur has already ravished for food, secretly gleeful that I managed to magic up so much meat and cheese and such with a single word. He tried to bring me some earlier, but my stomach didn't feel up to digesting at the time. Arthur informs me that there are also a few bathing rooms that Morgana has sequestered herself, and the upstairs bedrooms, the largest of which Arthur and Morgana had brought me to.

In my room, there is the large, fluffy bed I've sunken into, the soft cotton rugs and woolen curtains to the windows made of the clearest and purest glass any of us have ever seen. The fire is merry and the desk beside it studious. Several books sit there, stacked three or four volumes high. The air is thick with the smell of daisies and lingering magic.

While I'm relaxing and berating myself, I find that if I lie very still and close my eyes, _Morgana's_ magic will appear.

It swims around me, curious, like a fish gazing through the surface of a lake at a fisherman. But I must keep _very_ still- the magic is flighty. Unreliable. It's not at all like my magic or, rather, _Emrys'_ magic. I wonder how Morgana ever even got control of it, as wild and mindless as it is. It's almost like I have to ignore it for it to approach me. How had I even gotten so well a handle on it to make this inn?

"Luck," I say to myself, and that one movement causes the magic to scatter. I sigh, because the sensation is not unlike saying something to make a dear friend run from you. To be without magic… What sort of miracle do Freya and Morgana think will fix that? Fix me?

"Why does trouble always seem to find me?" I wonder aloud, closed eyes aching with an absence of heat.

_I would assume it is because you've so much practice, Merlin._

Startled, I open my eyes and turn my head to find a familiar, robed form pouring over an open book by the fireside desk. Spectacles flashing, Gaius' phantom looks up at me, and raises one impressive eyebrow.

_What have you gotten yourself into this time?_

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Do your eyes deceive you? In fact, they do not: certain dead characters are turning out to be not very dead at all. Or, at least, death doesn't seem to hinder them very much. I know Gaius' death wasn't a very prominent fact in previous chapters, but I **_**have**_** mentioned it. **

**And poor Arthur! What a chore to be stuck between Merlin and Morgana as the peacemaker. Hopefully those two will wise up at some point. But I should probably mention that this story does not focus on relationships. **

**Also, we're exploring what it means to be Emrys in this story, if you'll remember. The creation of the inn is part of that exploration. Explanations will come, dear readers. **

**Comments, questions, concerns? Contact me via PM or review and I'll be sure to fill you in.**

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**


	7. Sealing Fate

**Emrys Emergent**

**Chapter Seven: Sealing Fate**

**by Tonzura123**

**Disclaimer: I'm the Druid King. No joke.**

* * *

><p>"Hearest thou this great voice that shakes the world,<p>

And wastes the narrow realm whereon we move,

And beats upon the faces of the dead,

My dead, as though they had not died for me?-

O Bedivere, for on my heart hath fallen

Confusion, till I know not what I am,

Nor whence I am, nor whether I be King.

Behold, I seem but King among the dead."

-_The Passing of Arthur_, Tennyson

* * *

><p><strong>THEN<strong>

"Why does trouble always seem to find me?" I wonder aloud, closed eyes aching with an absence of heat.

_I would assume it is because you've so much practice, Merlin._

Startled, I open my eyes and turn my head to find a familiar, robed form pouring over an open book by the fireside desk. Spectacles flashing, Gaius' phantom looks up at me, and raises one impressive eyebrow.

_What have you gotten yourself into this time?_

**NOW**

For one wild moment, I entertain the idea that Gaius isn't a ghost at all, but some miracle salvaged from the flipping of the Gaia Stone. Yet, reality roughly checks me; I can see the desk through Gaius' transparent chest. So, kicking off the daisy-needlework covers, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stare. Gaius' ghost stares calmly back. In this moment, we are both transparent.

"I thought you'd passed into the Other World," I say.

Seeing Gaius again is reminding me of all the mannerisms and movements that I had long forgotten I had even forgotten. Only a year after my mentor's passing, he has already become a phantom in my mind; lacking reality. More marvelous and heroic than he may have been in life. I cannot take my eyes from him now, and pray (quite selfishly) that I won't need to for some time.

_I had_, Gaius says, in answer to my question. His fingers steeple. I focus on them, remembering. _But many things have changed since the Gaia turned her face; All that was, is not and all that was not, is._

"All things hidden revealed," I continue, and pause, wondering why it sounds so familiar.

Gaius' ghost bows his white head. _All things powerful made low. In a time when all time dies, all men beasts, all beasts men, and all manner of the world turned, the immortal will die, and the dead will become immortal._

"Gaius..."

_Mordred has made a grave mistake, Merlin. To steal the power of Emrys is a dangerous undertaking that disrupts the very foundations of this world. The repercussions are already beginning._

"Repercussions?"

I try to recall if I have ever heard him sound so serious, but all I remember is that while he was dying he was more humourous than ever and nothing could make him frown. Longs talks about nothing. A sudden team-sport of mocking Arthur. Sometimes Arthur even came to speak with Gaius for long hours, while I was elsewhere, and my return sometimes included the sight of the two of them- one young and golden and one ancient and sun-bleached, speaking low and equal. The jealousy that stole through me in those moments was unforgiveable.

_As you have prophesized- The revelations of secrets, the movement of power from the powerful to the powerless..._

"Whoa, wait- I don't remember ever prophesizing such contradictory nonsense."

_It isn't the first time you've done it, _Gaius' ghost says mysteriously, and I think I see a glint of a smile hidden under that impressive eyebrow. The same sort of glint Gaius used to have when he knew something important, but wasn't in any rush to share.

"In a time when all time dies..." I mutter. It is this line that sends a thrill through me. I shudder to think of what it can mean. "How do I stop it?"

_Stop it? _asks Gaius' ghost. His eyes are round with surprise. _You don't, Merlin. Doom is imminent._

I clasp my hands tightly and lock them around the back of my head, pushing my face to my knees with a strangled sound.

I should have realized that Gaius has no fear left for Death. The dead never do.

"Gaius," I enunciate, trying to bring him around to a mortal's idea of woe, "I know you haven't been here for a while, but _imminent doom _isn't generally well received in Camelot. Arthur's going to throw a fit when he finds out."

_He will have no choice but to accept the madness Mordred has unlocked. _

Gaius' ghost stands, steps towards me. He seems to fill my whole vision with terrible, moving transparency and my heart hammers as I command my legs to not step back.

One ghostly hand rises, sweet white smoke and a sapping glow, above my heart. _Emrys must be Merlin. The world will make sure of it._

"I-" I stammer, and the choking rush of unnatural beats thrum in my throat. I swallow; will myself to believe Gaius would never harm me. "I'm _not_ Emrys anymore!"

His hand closes over my chest.

My sight goes black for only a moment and then Gaius is in front of me again. And behind him, there is nothing but velvet black stretching as far as my eyes can see in every direction, pinpricks of fiery diamonds glitter sharply from a thousand worlds away. And I see the world- _Gaia_- strung up in the nothingness as a marble, glimmering blue and soft greens and pure whites. I gasp at the sight of it, marvelous creation that looks nearly barren, but I know to be full of such amazing life.

_Look _the ghost of Gaius commands.

I see Beyond, circling and grey, Diana keeps close to the oceans of Earth, her face pockmarked with ages of fierce battle.

Farther still, a blazing trespasser, comet tail stretching for hundreds of thousands of leagues.

"What is that?" I ask, watching the shooting ball of fire edging closer and closer to the moon. It feels that in seconds they will pass one another as ships in the sea.

_Fate._

My blood beats in concert with the fire of _Fate_, and _Fate_, in turn, is tugged relentlessly by some unseen tide.

"What's making it move?" I wonder aloud. Arthur has books and scrolls on astronomy. It has long been his favourite pastime, aside from violence and mauling, to do nothing but sit in his window seat and chart the heavenly bodies. More than once, I'd asked him what the attraction was. More than once he'd answered that an idiot like me couldn't possibly understand.

And yet here, floating above the Earth's surface, Gaius smiles at me, like he never had in life, and tells me;

_You._

I wake, standing in the center of my room with one hand reaching and a terrible pain in my heart.

**OoooooOooooooO**

Morgana, Arthur, and I leave the magicked inn early the next day on magicked horseback, before the innkeeper or any of her grossly hung-over patrons can wake to stop us. The peace of the lush green forests is hushes the stilted conversation between brother as sister as we canter through. Arthur wants to make good time. Morgana wants to avoid stopping again to kiss me back to health. They seem to have realized I'm not in the mood for conversation this morning, so they leave me out of it. And I, in turn, become so bundled in my thoughts, that I don't acknowledge our arrival at Camelot's iron gates until a wave of well-meaning Camelotians descend on us.

"Sire!"

"Counselor!"

"Welcome home, my lords!"

Under the cool and thick shadows of the white stone walls, the people of Camelot (some cardinal red, most in drab pinks and browns) greet with great energy, all trying to take care of our mounts and many trying to ease me down to cart me off to the new Physician. One dares squeak out;

"Lady- The_ Lady Morgana_?"

Clearly, I'm not the only one who remembers her track record.

I slap their well-meaning hands away and swing down from the saddle, pushing the magicked horse off to be taken to the stables. "Yes, the Lady Morgana!" Arthur is saying, in his most Kingly Voice. "George- you'll get a room ready for her. Close to the Counselor."

"Not necessary," I say automatically, scowling under the stares connecting me to her.

"_Absolutely _necessary," Arthur replies, gripping the back of my neck with one hand. He leans low and says into my ear, "Keep an eye on her, will you?"

"I won't be stupid enough to let her out my sight, if that's what you're really worried about," I return, peeling away from him just as a familiar face leaps out of the crowd and into my arms.

"Merlin!"

"Felix-" I stumble back into Arthur, unsure of how to react to the bone-crushing hug the sixteen year old is currently administering. I settle for patting his back. "I didn't think you'd miss Latin that much."

"It's been awful, Merlin!" Felix exclaims, distraught. He still doesn't release me, but looks up with wet, blue eyes. "Bleys is evil! I've never been so numb from chores in all my life! You've got to help me!"

So, Master Bleys was the one keeping Felix in line. "I should have known."

"No, _really_, you wouldn't believe some of it! Gutting frogs, scrubbing leech tanks, tasting _vile_ medicines-!"

I take him by the shoulders and, with some effort, detach him. "All very good ways to build character."

Felix scowls as he leans down to pick up my pack, "_Without_ _magic_?"

I roll my eyes just as Morgana appears beside us, ruby lips smirking and hood thrown back to reveal the brilliant streaks of white in her tumbling black mane.

"Merlin," she says, a cat-like glint in her eyes, "Just who is _this _handsome young man?"

My fingers curl around Felix's shoulder, and I find myself pulling him tightly against my side. "Felix is my apprentice. And he is _off limits_, Morgana."

She ignores me.

"Felix," she says, peeling off her black velvet riding gloves, "be a lamb and put up my horse."

He's dropped my pack and out of my hold before I can blink. "Yes, my lady! Come're horsie." Felix grinningly coaxes the beast away, sending several not-so-covert glances back to look at Morgana. She smiles at him each time and each time he grins a little more nonsensically.

I point my finger at her. "Seduce my apprentice, and I will personally sabotage your skin-care lotions."

"Good luck doing that without magic."

"It's like you think I can't do _anything_ without magic."

Sending me a severely unimpressed look, she slaps her gloves into one lily-white palm and turns, mounting the steps with her dark head held high. "I'll be in my chambers. Send Felix for me when Arthur has gathered the council."

It only takes Arthur an extra half-hour to do so, and I grab George in the hallway to see to the _Lady Morgana_. Felix is put-out with me later because of it, and Morgana even more so, but Arthur is the most put-out by far, once the council makes its premeditated decisions clear.

"You want to do _nothing?" _Arthur demands. The room echoes with his cry, and several robed council members shift, glancing to their neighbors. I watch the dust motes hover in cuts of sunlight, my cheek resting heavily against my fist. The council is made of thirteen, excluding the King. I sit at the end, nearest Arthur, several of the old Lords that counseled Uther sit dispersed in the ranks, Leon and Elyan and an empty chair rest on the other end, where Gwen used to reside. It is the old Lords that Arthur is currently finding issue with.

Geoffrey of Monmouth sits up in his seat, papers and scrolls laid out before him. "Sire, the prophecies of Emrys do not foretell of a force that can be defeated."

"Anything can be defeated," says Arthur, "given the means."

"At a word, the country would turn to ash," Geoffrey quotes, unrolling a large, dusty scroll with a Druid seal. "With a look, time itself would shred, ribbons of memory and future mixing in bloody chaos."

"We don't even know if those scrolls are telling the truth," argues Elyan. He is angry and scared at his sister's situation, and willing to find a fight wherever he can. "They could have been on the cider."

"They could have been," Morgana agrees, "But they weren't." She sits to my right, leaning back with crossed legs and folded hands. Every once in a while, her bouncing foot will bump the back of my leg. She tugs on my sleeve to catch my attention, "Were they, Merlin?"

I look at Arthur. He reads my face at once and cusses. The rest of the council falls into a noisy panic, beards and shawls talking of ways to surrender and still keep the Queen safe. One Lord even suggests abandoning Camelot all together.

"So Camelot is lost?" Leon half-shouts at this pragmatic Lord, fisting the pommel of his sword. "When have we ever left her to our enemies? When have we ever _not_ defeated an impossible foe?"

"But that was when Emrys was on _our_ side of the battle!" the Lord shouts back. "The most powerful creature of magic to ever exist! And you think man-made means will stop him?"

"As Knights, Lords, and leaders we have _sworn an oath_ to protect Camelot at all costs!"

"There won't _be _a Camelot if we attempt insurgency against Mordred!"

I sit back and watch as the council devolves into a group of fearful men, gnarled fingers shaking with anger and age, fur wrappings weighing them down from standing to argue, voices giving out half-way through their sentences. Arthur is alternating between rubbing at the junture of his nose and brow and trying to insert a voice of reason at the growing panic.

I look at Morgana. Her green eyes watch me clearly, wide yawning things that swallow chaos as a feast.

_"All things powerful made low_," I realize.

She smiles. Then nods.

I stand. The movement is sudden and unexpected from my silent corner, and the council dwindles, stops, then turns to see me.

"None of you know a thing about magic," I say.

This is enough to stun them completely. Arthur's eyebrows fly upwards with a knowing grin as I continue;

"For all you have read, all you have seen, you haven't a drop of its power and you've never wielded it. I wouldn't have scholars tell Arthur how to win a battle, and I won't have warriors anticipate how magic works. Magic is above Emrys as the sky is above us, and though we breathe it in, we cannot hope to control it. Not completely."

Arthur intercedes here, his face very serious as he absorbs my words, "Then there _is _a way to defeat him."

"His doom is already in motion," I say. "That stone he used, the Device, is meant to change the state of things. But to use magic to _change_ magic, which is what Emrys is, is impossible. Magic just _is_. The Device wasn't meant for that, and Mordred wasn't meant to be Emrys. I am."

A bird chirps outside and someone drops a platter outside the double doors.

"Have you been sitting on that all morning?" Arthur asks incredulously.

"I only just figured it out."

"Wait." Leon holds up both hands, opens his mouth and closes it again. He points at me earnestly. "What?"

"Emrys is an embodiment of all magic- he's meant to be good and righteous."

"But the Device- stone- rock thing; why can't it change that?" Elyan asks.

Morgana sits up.

"I want you to imagine," she says, "That you have a little leash for a pet parakeet, made of twine and a cute little ribbon. It keeps the bird close, keeps it from flying away or getting lost. Now, if you will, imagine using this same little, string of a leash to bind something infinitely more powerful. Like...a Questing Beast."

"Oh," says the council as one. A few of them nod and Arthur winces openly.

"Right now, we're waxing from a half-moon," I continue. "The time when the rift between the worlds is thinned. On the night of the full moon, another fortnight from now, a comet will pass over us. We just have to hold out until then."

"What happens then?" asks Elyan.

I turn my eyes once more to the slanting lights from the windows, the twirling dust, and standing plainly, impressive eyebrows arching, Gaius nods to me.

"There won't be a rift. This world and the Otherworld will collide, and magic will run rampant through all of Albion."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**I am **_**so**_** going to finish this. If you've tried to contact me this summer and I haven't replied- I've been buried in school work. I should be around more later on. **

**And has created a cover-art option! Please PM me if you'd be interested in making a cover for any of my stories. (You know, seeing as I lack all required artistic ability.)  
><strong>

**Allonsy!**

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**


	8. The Time of Mourning

**Emrys Emergent**

**Chapter Eight: The Time of Mourning**

**by Tonzura123**

**Disclaimer: I, Tonzura123, do so disclaim this TV show and all the Arthurian myth it is based on. (But if you're willing to part with it, we can meet later to discuss a price...)**

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><p><em>"Gaia has turned her face<em>

_And all the was is not, all the was not is. _

_All things hidden revealed,_

_All things powerful made low. _

_In a time when all time dies, _

_All men beasts, all beasts men, _

_And all manner of the world turned, _

_The immortal will die, and the dead _

_Will become immortal."_

_- _The Second Prophecy by Counselor Merlin of Ealdor, King of the Druids, and Lord of the Dragons

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><p><strong>THEN:<strong>

_"Right now, we're waxing from a half-moon," I continue. "The time when the rift between the worlds is thinned. On the night of the full moon, another fortnight from now, a comet will pass over us. We just have to hold out until then."_

_"What happens then?" asks Elyan._

_I turn my eyes once more to the slanting lights from the windows, the twirling dust, and standing plainly, impressive eyebrows arching, Gaius nods to me._

_"There won't be a rift. This world and the Otherworld will collide, and magic will run rampant through all of Albion."_

**NOW:**

In the end, Arthur makes the decision to prepare for this like any other invasion. He posts guards with elect magic-users at each entrance (even the secret tunnels, once Morgana points them out), charging them to report _any _unusual events, people, or signs, no matter how small. Because of this, there are several false alarms including strangely coloured chickens, drunken pigeons, and one very verbose man who thinks it helpful to stand on a box and shout that the end is nigh. Other than these interruptions, business goes on as usual. The knights visit me in the Western Tower to ask after my health. Felix "cleans" the rooms with a spell that I end up having to spell out for him on paper so that he can do it right, and then another spell to vanish the wardrobe which (as a result of the incorrect incantation) launches into a long ballad about a land called Spare Oom. By the time evening falls, I feel bristly and achy and send Felix away to finish his French lessons so that I can get some peace and quiet.

I don't get any.

No sooner have I collapsed at my desk, than my door opens and Morgana saunters in, book in hand.

"Do you own, _The Knights of Sablehelm_?" she wonders. "Some fool handed me the sequel, supposing that I had already read the first. Now I'm all knotted up in a love triangle that makes little to no sense. It's obvious that she should kill both of those sap-headed mooners and marry the blacksmith."

I squint up at her, cradling my temples. "You're wearing colour."

It's true- She's wearing a long blue dress with gold trim. For many years, I have seen her in nothing but ghastly black rags, stitched together with what felt like magic and a little glue, and now, like the world has turned around, she's wearing blue. Periwinkle _blue_.

She raises a finely-shaped eyebrow in reply and says not one word about it, turning instead to survey my quarters. There are staffs of magic propped up in the four corners, incantation rugs with frayed edges and reeking of marshmallow, amulets and trinkets and charms scattered hither and thither like rice at a weddign. Above the doorway, a sprig of hellbore shivers in the window cross-breeze. All around the room, like centurions, my bookcases overflow with books of magic, snapped wands, and my shiny, enchanted sleeping cap.

"I don't suppose, being a servant really inspire you to clean up around here?" She wanders to the bookcases, picking up broken peices of metal, turning them over, and running her finger through the magic dust lining the cases.

"Yeah, I'm the embodiment of cleanliness" I groan, standing and walking past her to the middle of my bookshelves. "Here- Just be careful with it. It's one of the few copies left."

Lifting the book, she opens the cover and flips a few pages in, eyes scanning the content. "I'm actually a little surprised, Merlin. You owning a romance. And such a saucy one at that."

"It was a gift." I've never even read it. "From Gaius."

"Gaius?"

"You do remember Gaius, don't you?" I ask acerbically. "Court Physician? I think you may have even tortured him once, trying to figure out who Emrys was."

"I knew he was a romantic at heart."

He had been a romantic. And several other things I didn't know about until after he had passed.

"Did you want anything else?" I snap. "Or are you just here to plague me?"

"Arthur asked me to check on you." And as I groan again and stomp behind my desk, she trails after, reading through the first pages of _The Knights of Sablehelm._ "Apparently, silence on your end is _not_ a good sign. I would have found it to be a blessing."

"I'm not really in the mood to give good signs. My magic is gone, Mordred is trying to kill everyone I care about, and-"

Morgana stops reading. "And-?"

And I'd almost mentioned Gaius' ghost. I can see him even now, watching me without speaking, a frown settled on his thin lips. I have to look away and move the scrolls, papers, various gadgets around on my desk as a distraction. "And I have to deal with _you_ every minute of the day."

"Very cute."

"In any event, I have to read through these and sign some things and figure out a way to bring down the child that stole the power of Emrys, thank you very much, so if you could just—"

"—Merlin."

I look up. Morgana sits on the edge of the desk, facing me with Gaius' book held open on her periwinkle lap. Her green eyes, which are usually alight with underhanded ploys, look only serious. She watches me closely, her magic stirring in my veins, aware of its mistress. Finally, she reaches down and pats my cheek, almost gently.

"Did you know that the time of mourning for a High Priestess is seven years?"

It throws me. "No."

"There are only two occasions for a High Priestess to mourn," she continues, stroking my cheek. "The first is when she replaces a deceased High Priestess. The second- her immediate relations."

"Morgause," I realize.

"Morgause," she agrees. "My sister _and_ High Priestess of the Old Religion. Today, the time of mourning is over."

I look hard at her, catching her hand and pushing it away from me. "But you still agreed to help us even before it was over. Why is that?"

"Because I'm secretly and madly in love with you," Morgana says in mock hurt. "_Obviously_."

I scowl, and she swoops down the short distance to kiss me, landing briefly on the corner of my mouth. "Go outside. Get some fresh air. And stop making Arthur fret, because he's twice as annoying when he is."

She stands and makes for the door. "Hello, Felix," she says in passing. My apprentice is standing in the doorway to his rooms, to the side of the shelves. When she's gone, he turns to me and makes his eyes bulge out in question.

"You'll understand when you're older," I say.

"Will I?" he asks a little desperately.

I think about it. "No." But I do feel a little better, and decide it's because of the transfer of magic.

**OooOooOooOooO**

When Arthur returns with George from the refreshment table, I am standing on his corner of the practice fields, cradling his mace in my arms.

"Be honest," I greet. "Did you put Morgana's rooms near mine so that I could keep any eye on _her_, or so that she could spy on _me_?"

George only has to look between the two of us to know that he has no place here. He quickly bows and scampers off again to the refreshment table, his gait positively stiff.

"It was mutually beneficial," Arthur answers, once his manservant is out of range. "Now, give me that."

I hand the mace over to him, and he immediately sets on the training dummy, taking long swings and circling like a stalking lion. "So, you admit that this was partly wringing your hands over me?"

"Listen," Arthur says. His mace lodges deeply in the wooden skull of his "opponent" and he leaves it there to turn around and point a gloved finger at me. "I was thinking _purely _as a tactician. Morgana is dangerous, obviously, and of magic. You, up until recently, were the most powerful person of magic alive. If she tried anything, you would be the first to know, and the first to know how to stop her. She'd be far enough away from everyone else in that godforsaken tower of yours to be slowed down. On the other side of things, if anything happened to _you_, Morgana could heal you sooner than anyone else."

I watch as Arthur tugs the mace out of the dummy's head. "I jump every time I see her."

Arthur grunts in reply.

"I'm so used to fighting her. It's weird, getting along like this." Honestly, my real problem is almost shouting a blasting spell in her direction every time I see her, an old habit that knocks her over and gives me plenty of time to escape, draw a ward for Arthur, or imprison her before she can properly retaliate. "I can't tell if she's creepier or more endearing when she's acting all sweet and understanding..."

"Well, we may not be getting along like _you two _are getting along," Arthur says, glancing meaningfully at the corner of my mouth, where her lipstick left a stain. "But we're cordial enough. I let her borrow a book earlier."

"The sequel to _The Knights of Sablehelm_?" I ask, grinning.

"How'd you know?"

"Just a guess." I watch Arthur bat the dummy around for a while longer, sitting, then lying backwards on the soft grass. Finally, head pillowed on my arms, I close my eyes against the sun and just listen to the clash of metal and breathing and the friendly taunting between the knights that work around me, and the voice of George (still unwelcome) telling a brass joke to Sir Percival by the refreshments.

"Now I _know _you're feeling better," Arthur gripes.

"And how'd you know that?" I murmur, playing along. A smile builds in the corner of my mouth. Trying to resist only blooms it into a full, toothy grin.

"You're being lazy," answers my King. "You're only ever lazy when you're feeling well."

I stick out my tongue, not caring if he sees. "I've been kicked out of my tower, forbidden to return until I've relaxed a little." All I see is the orange of burning light through my eyelids. I can taste the sweet clover in the air, and the sunshine. "You know, I think Morgana's magic is based on the strength of the sun."

"Really?"

"Hers is different from mine," I say. "It feels almost like its building, the longer I lie here, soaking it in. Refreshing it. It must be so sporadic to control. It's a wonder she's progressed as far as she has. I would have gone mad."

Arthur makes no reply, and I realize that I don't hear the terrific crash of weaponry anymore. I open my eyes to find him staring down at me, his expression uncertain. "What?"

"I don't think it's really sunk in yet," he says. "You being magic."

"I'm still me," I say.

"That's the strangest part of all." He looks out over the practice fields, watching his men. "When I passed the law to allow magic back into the Kingdom, several of my knights- my bravest and my dearest- revealed that they had been born into families of magic, that they practiced magic, or that they were willing to use it for the sake of Camelot."

"Your people will always be loyal to you, Arthur."

Arthur nods, smiles to himself suddenly, and sits next to me in the grass. "In a way, Merlin, you're almost like a knight."

"Am I?" Even though I give the knights a hard time about their varied levels of stupidity, I know this is considered a compliment coming from Arthur, who prizes his knights above almost all else. He's spent his entire life training them, honing them to perfection. Thus far, they have proved themselves to be the finest fighting force in all of Albion, and are all the more held in Arthur's affections.

"We have an old maxim, in the knights," he reminisces. "About keeping secrets from our forsworn."

He punches me.

"Ow!" I cry, sitting up quickly and grabbing my arm. "What was that for?"

"That's for lying to me about your magic," Arthur says cheerfully. In his glee, he looks exactly like his sister. He reaches over and punches me again before I can move out of the way.

"And _that_?"

Arthur ruffles my hair. "That one was to cheer you up."

"You're thick," I reply. "I don't _want _to be a knight, you prat!"

_Prepare yourself._

I start, stopping myself, too late, from glancing at the ghost of Gaius.

"Merlin?" Arthur asks.

Gaius' ghost is looking across the field, where a group of guards are coming towards us. I stand quickly, heart racing, and Arthur is close behind.

"What news?" Arthur asks.

"Sire. Counselor." Sir Gwaine, their leader, greets us. He sounds short of breath and doesn't meet our eyes. "There is trouble at the gates. You must come."

He leads us quickly to the front of Camelot, parting crowds of silent men and women. They have amassed, somber-faced, at the high gates of the very front of the city. Arthur glances at me, worried, and I give him a look in return. The sense of wrong is running through the _both _of us, then. And Gwaine has not cracked a single smile, a single snarky joke.

Just before we break through the crowd, he turns to us and says, "Prepare yourself. I'm so sorry."

No, not to us.

To me.

Arthur slows suddenly, on the edge, and then stops. I run into him. Without turning around, he says very clearly, "Get him out of here."

"Get who-?" But the knights lay hands on me, faces blank. "Arthur?"

"Take him to his rooms." Arthur's voice is flat, panicked. It's catching.

"Arthur-"

_I'm so sorry_.

I freeze. My heart stops. "No. No, oh God, _no-"_

_I'm so sorry_, says the ghost beside Gaius. Her beautiful face is sad, and she clasps familiar hands before herself, soft hair tumbling around her cheeks and eyes- _my eyes_- that I have looked to all my life for comfort and happiness.

_My son_. She reaches forwards through the throng of people and through my restrainers. Her cold fingers reach my forehead, filling me with sight. _Ealdor is only the beginning._

It is begun; the end is nigh.

**OooOooOooOooO**

_The day was strong, the light was fair, and his anger was boundless. First, he spoke to them, offering. Second, winked at their refusal, and changed the babbling dirt to dust._

_But for one. He needed a messenger to ask _him-

Merlin, Merlin, what have you done to me?

_Merlin, Merlin, you know not what I'll do to you._

_He carves his message into her flesh and lets her pumping heart take care of the rest._

**OooOooOooOooO**

Arthur comes, after sunset, with a soft knock on my door, and a question about whether or not I would like to come down and see her.

I ask him what for.

"To mourn," says Arthur.

I think about this, considering with some surprise that I've never had the choice before. Arthur mourned after I killed his father. Why shouldn't I mourn after I killed my mother?

I say, "Yes, thank you," and follow him out. We reach the throne room in a blink. Arthur stops at the doors and I almost run into him.

"She's in there," Arthur says. He makes it sound like she's some monster we have to battle. But I'm pants at fighting. Especially without magic.

"Come with me?" I ask. He nods, swallows, and holds open the door for me.

She's at the far end, laid out in a fine dress and a washed face. Her hair has been braided with flowers. She looks like a lady. A proper Dragonlady.

I stand in front of her, just looking down, then look up at Arthur. "What do I do?"

Maybe she is a monster. Arthur looks scared- that determined scared he gets right before battle.

"It's all right," I tell him. He stands beside me and kneels next to her pyre. I mimic him.

He speaks in a soft, low voice, hands clasped in front of him. It feels like we're praying. He leans close to me, looking ahead and down at her. "When my father died, I spent the night in here crying."

I feel sad at the thought. "You don't cry."

"I did for him. And it's all right to cry for her, Merlin."

His arm is warm against mine. We're like twin statues, guarding a grave.

"I don't feel like crying."

"That's fine."

He still has that burn on his jaw- lighter now, from my fight with Bleys. Under my hand, I feel a deep and empty cut on her wrist.

The answer comes.

I sigh, resting my head on the stone of her final resting place. It's cold against the fever of my skin, and Arthur's warm hand is on the back of my neck, squeezing.

_A dragon, _I think. _That's how we stop him._

When I cry, it is not for my mother, but for Kilgarrah.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Next time- **_**dragons**_**. And more bromance. **_**Obviously**_**. And I should probably mention that there will be some romance later in this story, but I won't say who. Some of it is one-sided. Some of it is reciprocated. None of it is slash.**

**Also- I should mention that Gaius' death is a very touchy subject for Merlin, as if this chapter didn't prove it. There will be a few flash back moments (it's likely) to the time of Gaius' sickness and passing. **

**Like it? Hate it? Have serious input for how to improve it? Please let me know via PM or review.**

**Thanks for reading!**

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**


	9. A Blood and Fire Type of Magick

**Emrys Emergent**

**Chapter Nine: A Blood and Fire Type of Magick**

**by Tonzura123**

**Disclaimer: Excalibur is my breadknife and Camelot is my crowded garage.**

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><p><em>... Dreams of farmland swaying, <em>

_Magicked fires murmuring_

_Bloody roads of Mordred's coming, _

_And red-tailed nightmares warning:_

_Emrys is emerging ..._

-Taken from _The Myrdin Maw,_ "Bleys' Bardsongs for Babes", 2nd Ed.

* * *

><p><strong>THEN:<strong>

_The answer comes._

_I sigh, resting my head on the stone of her final resting place. It's cold against the fever of my skin, and Arthur's warm hand is on the back of my neck, squeezing._

_A dragon, I think. That's how we stop him._

_When I cry, it is not for my mother, but for Kilgarrah._

**NOW:**

It's not a fairytale, or a bedtime story, or even a real poem. But it dances around my head like the Sidhe, repeating, repeating, printing letters in red across the inside of my eyes.

Hundreds of little voices chanting. Thousands of tones invading my restless sleep. Within, my body feels hot and weary where the words reach me, and outside there is nothing but cold. I am tangled somewhere in between, just floating, rocking on the words, drawn farther and farther out into the black of my mind. And something more than words, tangible and real, pulling me back out into the cold light.

"_Merlin_."

One warm word shuttles me into reality. An aching reality where my neck hurts and a warm hand shakes my shoulder, rocking my forehead on my folded arms. I lift my head to blink at the streaming daylight through the high-arching windows of the Hall.

Arthur, rumpled and red-eyed, stands beside me. He gives me one last shove, strangely gentle, and lets me go.

"Merlin," he repeats. "It's a new day."

I look back down at my numb left hand, wrapped tightly around the pale, stiff flesh of my mother's corpse. I bow my head to kiss her frigid knuckles and let go, standing to a woozy height beside Arthur. As we stand there a second more, several half-hearted and half-witted replies spring to mind, some more bitter than others. But I cannot bring myself to speak, to care to speak, and I ultimately find that sharing this silence with Arthur endears him to me more than any pledge or assurance he could possibly say.

So, we each bow and depart from Dragon Lady and her slumber, closing the thick doors behind us.

**OooOooOooOooO**

He is beating, breathing, baring and he is coming.

I called and he is coming.

He is coming and I might be crazy.

Because I know He's not going to be pleased with me.

**OooOooOooOooO**

Not many can tell you that grief is like fear. (1)

It's like a sickness that settles in you, spreading, wounding, debilitating. It can fetter you to a bed for weeks, making you some useless, thoughtless, grey-faced hiccup. It can surprise you, as soon as you think you've healed. Little things (always the littlest things) hit you like a sword. Suddenly you're back to that moment, the exact moment when you knew they were lost to you, and you to them. There are the crippled, and then there are men who inhabit another form of that ghastly virus: the kind that are cornered and foaming.

Felix, bleary-eyed and with his dark hair sticking up every which-way, hobbles out of his rooms and into my quarters.

"Sir," he says. He's being cautious, which is rare for him. I appreciate the sentiment, because I'm either caught in grief or in fear, and it's nice to not be alone.

"Morning."

"Good morning." He leans against the desk and watches me, rubbing his eye. "Why are you wearing that?"

"That" is my only set of light armour- a thick leather cuirass over enchanted-nickel chainmail. I made it for battle years ago, as a servant under Arthur. Because he never touched it or lifted it, he never knew about the magic wrapped in every fold. He just assumed he'd have to make me carry fewer supplies to compensate for the weight of the armour. That had been a definite bonus. But seeing as I was wounded in the _leg _during that battle and carried off the field only in the nick of time, the armour hadn't amounted to much. Arthur refused to let me into the thick of things ever again.

It collected dust for many years, moving from my closet to my wardrobe when I was promoted to Counselor, and now I am finding that my shoulders have grown a little since last time. I pull the hood from under the cuirass and arrange it down the back, keeping most of my longish hair out of the way of the links.

"Do you want a helmet?" Felix presses against my muteness. He becomes a little more aware for every moment he's awake. "Merlin, are we in a fight? _Is it Mordred_?"

I pull a buckle taut and strap it, checking and pulling, looking for holes. "Go find the Lady Morgana."

"Merlin-"

He steps forward, but stops when I put a hand up.

"The odds," I say, "are very in my favor. But I don't know how good they are for you, or anyone else."

"We _are_ in a fight!" Felix exclaims angrily. "And you want me to hide behind Aunty Morgana's skirts!"

"Yes, Felix, that's exactly what I want. Now _hurry._" I grab the staff leaning against a dusty bookcase and brush magic residue from the jewel-like tip. "We don't have much time before-"

Before two things happen in quick succession.

The first being the arrival of Arthur, who throws open the door with bugging eyes and a reaching hand. He opens his mouth and says "_Merlin!"_ before the second thing happens.

He arrives.

There is a terrific _CRASH_ and something makes the whole tower sway. All three of us stumble. Arthur is yelling, "_Come on! Come on!" _and I have Felix by the back of the neck, throwing him forwards into Arthur's reaching arms. The tower sways again and _leans_ and even though Arthur catches hold of the door frame, I slide backwards on the clean, smooth stone floor until I hit the far wall, my head cracking hard against it. Trinkets and furniture rattle and shake around me. Spells and barriers crack. Protective wards splinter completely.

A roar like grinding iron, bellowing like a lion, rends through the air and the stone barely supporting me. I can see Arthur clap a free hand over his ears, wincing and pulling my servant against him in protection. Felix's eyes are squeezed shut and his mouth is open like he's yelling, but I can't hear it. Instead, I feel Morgana's magic _sing_ inside of me, and Arthur can only look my way, terrified, before he vanishes.

I'm alone in the falling tower, the window beside me almost has a perfect view of the ground, and the loose stones that are already plummeting to their doom. And, on the side where the doorway used to be, lurks a single, giant, yellow eye. Focused and furious at _me_.

**OooOooOooOooO**

It had appeared out of cloudless sky and descended on the tower before they could even sound the alarm. Arthur had seen it first, taking off at full speed to the Western Tower, seemingly racing it, to where the Counselor Merlin resides. For a while, there was only a flurry of taking up arms, testing swords and shields, and Leon had a flashback to the last time a dragon had decided to attack Camelot. By all means, he should have died that night, but by some miracle he, Arthur, and Merlin had survived.

Actually...

Considering recent events, Leon begins to wonder if it was _Arthur_ who had dealt that mortal blow after all.

CRASH!

Or, perhaps, if the "mortal blow" part of that story hadn't been a tad exaggerated.

"Leon!"

Sir Leon lets out a breath of relief when King Arthur comes running into view. Counselor Merlin's servant in tow and they are both covered, head to toe, in white debris from the crumbling tower.

"Thank God," Leon blurts out. "Sire, how did you escape the dragon?"

Arthur, grey-faced and swallowing, cannot answer before Sir Gwaine runs by with two other knights, the three of them hefting a harpoon launcher.

"Hurry, Sire!" the knight yells. "The brute's nearly ripped the tower in two!"

Arthur grabs Leon by the front of his chainmail and drags him forward at a dead run, the servant boy sprinting just behind. They burst from the winding passages of the armory into blinding noon sunlight, and Gwaine is yelling, "_Get ready!"_ as a monstrous dragon, brownish grey and spitting fire, tears his talons into the stone of the tower walls, ripping whole chunks into the courtyard below.

"Look!" the servant boy cries, and this time, the talons retreat from the wall with something darker than the white stone, something kicking, and Leon's heart climbs into his throat as Arthur screams out, "_Merlin!"_

It _is _Merlin. And the dragon drops him.

It's too intentional, too methodical, to be an accident. It lifts the boy up long enough to look at him in the eye, and then lets him go. Merlin's thin form plummets with pieces of the tower walls, books and rugs. Gwaine is yelling at the knights to fire, but the dragon is eerily quick for a beast of its size, slithering, upside down, down the side of the castle, leaping off to catching Merlin's flailing form just before he hits. It ascends on a flap, gains air until it's flying high above.

It drops Merlin again. Leon is brutally reminded of a cat playing with a mouse- eventually breaking its fragile spine under a sharp paw.

"Move!" orders a new voice, and they all turn to the sight of the Lady Morgana descending the steps, her black and white hair streaming, her armor glittering. With burning eyes, she raises a hand and shouts a string of words, lashes of fire blooming from nothing and striking out at the dragon as it darts after Merlin's form. If there was ever any doubt of which side Morgana stood for, it was answered now.

"Get Bleys!" she roars. "Get all the sorcerers you can!"

No one dares argue with her.

**OooOooOooOooO**

I've seen Kilgarrah mad. Furious, even. He's a Dragon, not some garden lizard. I've watched him burn down half of Camelot because of _grudge_, but that was clearly nothing against the rage boiling inside of him now, reserved completely and expressly for me.

_YOU FOOL._

His voice is like a thunderbolt bursting in my skull. I'm blinded by the sheer volume of his anger, by the continuous rush of air and weightlessness and terror.

_I HAVE WARNED YOU SINCE THE BEGINNING, BUT YOUR ARROGANCE AND STUPIDITY WILL BE THE DEATH OF US ALL. _

The magicked armour, at least, holds under the abuse of those wicked, catching claws. My organs, as far as I can tell, are intact. But my breathlessness was not a factor I had considered, and now I cannot find the air to reason with him, falling, rising, pitching, flaring back and forth at a dizzying speed. I'm distantly grateful to have skipped breakfast.

_THAT POWER, MEANT NOT FOR MORTAL HANDS, PASSED LIKE A DISEASE. AND STILL, YOU PATHETIC WELP, YOU FLIRT WITH DISASTER BY __**TRUSTING A DRAGON.**_

Wind is whistling, wailing, by me, and I get lucky. Something not wind, crackling and angry, flies upwards, beside me, grazing me with raw heat. It strikes Kilgarrah's side and he wheels in the air, missing me by a hair.

I kick at the fast-approaching ground, cobblestone and close, suddenly far too close. I throw my arms up in front of my face, feel a spark of something like magic, but it's not mine, not Kilgarrah's, and not Morgana's. It flares from my arms like a comet's shield, and when I hit the ground, it dents under me, the force of my landing cushioned, and then repelled. I bounce back up a few feet and, this time, land on my back. The remaining air in my lungs rushes out. I lie gasping on the ground until several figures surround me, saying my name and swearing, some cursing in Druid tongue.

"Get back," I rasp, gingerly sitting up and waving them away. "Get back, you idiots!"

Kilgarrah is screaming shoots of blooming fire, flapping hard at us with an open maw.

I jerk to my feet, pushing my friends back, and scream right back.

_"STOP!"_

He careens to halt just before, wings trembling, righting their folds. His teeth are bared, a growl low in his throat, wild ire still in his eyes.

"_Bow!" _I roar, my voice barely human, calling on that ancient, blood and fire magick. "_I am the Last Dragonlord still."_

Stripped of the power of Emrys, there is still one gift that my dying father passed on to me. If I could be Emrys before I was a Dragonlord, then I can be a Dragonlord after I cease to be Emrys. There are but two dragons in existence, being the young, white Aithusa, and the old, wise Kilgarrah. And before the eyes of the court of Camelot, the Dragon Kilgarrah bends his ancient knees, and bows his serpentine head low. When his nose brushes the dusty ground, his voice, gravelly and grave, says, "_Such a small lord with such a small kingdom."_

_"I'll take what I can get," _I reply shortly. "_As for Mordred- I had no way of knowing what he was capable of."_

_"You knew of the threat he carried," _Kilgarrah snaps, sharp jaw clicking at the air. "_And still you thought to bestow your typical, unnecessary mercy."_

_"I can't change my choices, and I wouldn't anyway. You are here because I have need of you."_

He laughs, short and terribly not amused. "_Will there ever be a day when I am not helping you fix your grisly mistakes?"_

_"Perhaps sooner than later."_

Those around us have fallen completely still. I can feel the weight of their eyes and I am too tired to care. I place my hand on Kilgarrah's bloody maw and lean my forehead against him, thinking, _Brother._. Morgana's magic is wary of the ancient power that echoes around fortressed scales and rippling muscle, where my own would have been singing in an amber rush. If I hold very still, I can feel a whisper of that, but Morgana's magic is too flighty to stay, and all I feel is cold.

Very quietly, Kilgarrah observes, "_You are dying, Merlin."_

"_Arthur needs us," _I say desperately. "_And the world needs Arthur."_

And after a moment, "_Then I will help you. "_

I laugh, relieved. Kilgarrah's great, scaly head, rubs against my shoulder as he raises it and takes in our audience. Resting a hand on his hide, I search out Arthur, surprised to find him a step behind with Excalibur drawn and at the ready. He meets my eyes and grips my shoulder, obviously intending to draw me back to the defensive line of sorcerers and witches, Morgana burning at the foreground.

"It's all right," I say. "He's safe."

"It's not _his _safety I'm worried about," Arthur mutters. But he stops trying to frog-march me. "Are you all right?" In a voice too low for the others to hear, "Are you hurt?"

"Nothing a nap won't cure," I reply.

My King nods to the ruins of my home, crooked and ragged at the top of the Western Tower, his face grim. Castle repairs aren't cheap. Not for Emrys-less castles, anyway.

"Oh," I say vaguely. "That's all right. We have a Dragon on our side now."

"Two Dragons," Kilgarrah intones. The entire company freezes in the face of perfect English, but I nod.

"Two Dragons. _Where is Aithusa, anyway?_"

_"I'm not his _mother_, Merlin" _Kilgarrah growls.

**OooOooOooOooO**

****I cannot tell what upsets Arthur more: that a Dragon would toss his own Dragonlord around in the air like a ball, or that said Dragonlord would _let_ him.

In order to assuage all worry from King and court, I am escorted (dragged) to the physician's quarters, where I am promptly tossed onto a bench and plied with every foul sort of medicine, nerve tonic, and burn paste known to mankind. And while Physician Brunhilda attempts to make good health come out of my ears, Arthur paces the room like an irate bear, growling every once in a while to complete the picture.

"Do I even want to know where is head is at right now?" Arthur demands. His hands are shaking, as are his mouth, his voice- Arthur just isn't in a very steady place at the moment.

"My head is fine."

Brunhilda shoots me a look, but it lacks Gaius' ire, and I smile cheekily back at her. She _tsks_, wrapping the burns on the side of my leg. I find it a little funny that the same leg is injured whenever I wear this armour. I just hope it doesn't become a habit, like Arthur's tendency for unconsciousness. Now there's a place you can't be injured too often without permanent results.

"Don't think I don't know," Arthur snaps. "Don't think I don't realize- That I can't relate!"

"Can you even_ speak?"_ I wonder. He's not making any sense.

Arthur waves his hand once. It's such a cutting motion. If he had magic, something would have been irreparably damaged. As it is, Brunhilda, the current physician, lets my loose bindings hang and bows, exiting the room as quickly as she came. Arthur takes the opportunity to swear. Loudly. I watch him rake his hands through his hair, pacing to the fireplace, all movement and anger.

"Arthur-"

"No." Arthur turns on me. "I want to know what's going on with you."

"You want a list? You've been with me- You know what's going on. Mordred, right?"

"When you called the dragon, did I know what you were doing?" Arthur challenges. "When you prepared to be tossed around like a chew toy, did I know about _that?"_

His eyes fall on the dangling bandage ends and throws himself down at my side, picking up where Brunhilda left off. While he struggles to wrap the wound, he continues in a biting mutter, "Did I know anything? Ever?"

Years ago, he'd sat as my prince on this same bench, grabbing my shirt, threatening, "_You're disobeying orders, Merlin; I'll have you in the stocks for this,"_ as he bled out. And not too long after that, as my elevated friend, stole my breakfast from under my nose, happily wed and glad to see me for what was the first morning in his life. And after that, as my own brother, promising that I would always have a home in Camelot, no matter what happened, and Gaius gasping his last in front of us.

I watch the pallet in front of the fire, just behind the folded wooden screen. Gaius, transparent and blank, stares back.

"You of all people," I say, "should know how much I trust you."

As one, Arthur and Gaius speak, their voices mixing in my ears, "_Then tell me."_

"To my death."

Arthur's head drops (with shameful tears, or no, I do not care to see) and Gaius smiles at me with a nod.

"I'll trust you to my death," I swear.

And those thousands of voices cry out from the Otherworld, gleeful and teasing.

_"Dreams of farmland swaying,_

_Magicked fires murmuring_

_Bloody roads of Mordred's coming,_

_And red-tailed nightmares warning:_

_Emrys is emerging...!"_

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**(1) This line is shamelessly adapted from the C.S Lewis quote, "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear," from **_**A Grief Observed.**_

**All right! I know some of you might think Kilgarrah is OOC for this chapter, but I'm drawing on what I know about dragons to shape his response. Dragons are not fluffy bunnies, guys. **

**Next time: We see how Mordred is doing with Emrys' power, in the penultimate face-off. It will be brief, but it will be intense. The end is nigh, guys. This baby should be wrapped up by chapter fifteen.**

**I now have a Facebook account as "Tonzura Onetwothree" where I'll post updates on chapters and new stories I'm working on, or just to chat about good books etc.**

**Hope you're all having a wonderful summer!**

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**

****P.S: WHO SAW THE SERIES FIVE TRAILER?****


	10. Mordred Emrys

**Emrys Emergent**

**Chapter Ten: Mordred Emrys**

**by Tonzura123**

* * *

><p><strong>Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin, but I stake all claims on that little Felix guy who follows Merlin around like a puppy.<strong>

* * *

><p><em>"O YOUNG Mariner,<em>

_You from the haven_

_Under the sea-cliff,_

_You that are watching_

_The gray Magician_

_With eyes of wonder,_

_I am Merlin,_

_And I am dying,_

_I am Merlin_

_Who follow The Gleam."_

-Alfred Lloyd Tennyson, _Merlin and the Gleam_

* * *

><p><strong>THEN:<strong>

_Years ago, he'd sat as my prince on this same bench, grabbing my shirt, threatening, "You're disobeying orders, Merlin; I'll have you in the stocks for this," as he bled out. And not too long after that, as my elevated friend, he stole my breakfast from under my nose, happily wed and glad to see me for what was the first morning in his life. And after that, as my own brother, promising that I would always have a home in Camelot, no matter what happened, with Gaius gasping his last in front of us._

_I watch the pallet in front of the fire, just behind the folded wooden screen. Gaius, transparent and blank, stares back._

_"You of all people," I say, "should know how much I trust you."_

**NOW:**

I bunk with the knights, since Kilgarrah destroyed my tower.

Felix complains of the smell (raw chicken and Gwaine's unwashed socks) but I don't really mind because the Knights are all cheerful and love playing pranks on one another and they tell gut-busting stories to pass the time. It's been a long while since I've been able to sit among them. The whole atmosphere is loud and warm and a little like being back in Ealdor with Will and his brothers. But I cannot think on Ealdor with my mother's ghost hovering just out of sight.

"Look at the bright side," I say cheerfully to Felix. "This means you don't have to clean up after anyone."

"I've never felt so _compelled _to clean before," Felix retorts, eying Gwaine' amorphous pile of over-due laundry. In Felix's arms, a few remnant belongings from our decimated tower lay haphazardly. "There are dozens of guestrooms, why doesn't the King put us in one of those?"

I shrug, as if I don't know why Arthur is insanely overprotective these days or why he is taking no chances. But I do know. Rooming with the Knights? It's like putting a treasure in the middle of a booby-trapped labyrinth. Or putting a wolf-pup in the center of the pack. Anyone would have to be demented to make a bid for my life.

"Think of it as a social experiment," I suggest. "Observing 'Those That Are Thick' in their natural habitats."

But despite his misgivings, Felix falls into place with the knights almost overnight. I think he had always sort of admired them from afar. Many do. Yet it is vastly different to _be _with them, in the middle of them, and to be included with their jokes and rampart. It lights a sort of life in him; he relishes their attention. And they, almost surprised by their own reactions to him, seem to adopt him as one of their own. Within two days, the lot of them have filled Felix's mind with tactics and weaponry and fighting styles and the notion that he can be (one day) a Knight himself.

"Get yourself mauled, is more like," I harrumph when he tells me of their encouragement.

His face falls a little. "I know I'd have to train pretty hard, but _eventually_..."

I say nothing.

I spent the day flying around the countryside on Kilgarrah's bony back with Morgana hanging onto me from behind with a white-knuckle grip. I shouted myself hoarse calling for Aithusa, but there was no answer and we finally decided to rest for the day. I was so tired after the flight that even Morgana's peck on the lips did little to perk me up. Instead, I stumbled into the barracks, fell backwards onto my cot and listened for an hour and a half to Felix's new found dreams of knighthood.

"My father was a knight," Felix says suddenly.

I look over to him. He sits on the edge of his cot, looking down at his feet. His light hair is mussed from rough-housing and his long legs dangle, boots scuffing the floor. Sometimes I forget that Felix is almost grown up.

Carefully, I sit up to face him. "You've never told me that."

He shrugs. "Lots of people's fathers are knights."

"Not lots," I return. "Very few. If you'd told Arthur about your father, you might have avoided becoming my servant altogether."

"And miss out of all of this?" he laughs, and then sobers. "I guess... I guess you could say that I ran away from home. There were problems- I thought the only way to fix them was to come here."

"I felt the same."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

_I worried for you every day, _whispers my mother, cold air stirring the hairs on the back of my neck.

I stand and sit beside Felix, watching his hands as he fiddles with them. "Tell me more about your father. What was he like?"

His hands strain around each other, tensing over knuckles and chapped skin. "I dunno. He died before I was born."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. He had so many friends- They raised me, really. And my mother was wonderful. She was beautiful, but intelligent. Strong, and yet she knew when to be gentle."

"So why leave?"

"I don't-" his hands clasp tightly, and then fall apart. "I just had to do something. It was the only thing I _could _do."

I smile. "I felt the same. I didn't really fit in back home."

Felix' face twists up. "That's not quite what I-"

_-CRACK!_

The blast rocks the side of the castle and throws me out of bed. From the staircase, the sound of startled knights rebounds in strangled bellows. Gwaine comes hopping down the steps, trying to strap his foot into his plated boots, shouting at Percival to wake up and get ready. Bells clang. Metal sings on walls and floors and rib cages.

A hand falls on my arm- Felix, wide-eyed, is watching the dust spill from the ceiling. It trickles onto our faces and strings in my eyes.

"It's Mordred!" someone yells, and suddenly I'm jumping up.

"Where?" I demand at the room at large, but the swelling, mindless drills have practiced perception into nothingness. No one realizes I have spoken, so I go without the answer, and bound up to the ground floor.

The courtyard is in decidedly smaller shambles than yesterday. Whatever debris was leftover from the dragon attack is thrice-shattered. Camelot is literally falling into ruin around us. Arthur is going to be furious when he sees the damage this time.

And still, I do not see Mordred-Emrys.

"Merlin!" comes Felix's voice. He runs to my side, covering his head with one arm, in his other is a sword he can barely lift.

I push him away. "Get Morgana. Now!"

"I'm not leaving you again!" he replies angrily, grabbing onto my robes with one strong fist. "If you keep running out into trouble without looking first, you're going to get yourself _killed! _Come back inside!"

"Felix-"

"-_Now!" _In his fury, Felix' face contorts into a scowl, but his voice takes on a deeper element that is somehow more memorable and dear to me than any other; there is something dreadfully familiar there. I should know what. I should be able to recognize who he reminds me of...

"Felix," I begin, but am too late.

_**HeLLooooo, merlin**__..._

This voice is not a wince. It is not a shudder. It is something inescapable and scouring like a brush of nails and fire, pulling slowly through my mind and stealing parts of me as it goes. It is a silent scream and bloody knees. Somewhere, Felix is holding me up, but in here, outside of time and inside my head, Mordred-Emrys is pulling me down.

Down...

...deep, deep down...

**OooOooOooOooO**

deep in the darkest

pits of despair lining my mind and there

there was the anger and the fear and the

prickling spears

guilt dripping from my insides to the outside

screaming

i was

i am

i scream

and scream and scream and he likes it

he savors it

he wrenches through time and space and gathers

his slogging pitch belly like a babe to fill

with despair

and i was

i am

i despair

DO YOU HEAR MEcuriously he

measuringly asks me

DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO ME

DO YOU SEE

DO YOU SEE

DO YOU SEE

yes

i scream

i despair

i see

yes

i see you mordred emrys

**OooOooOooOooO**

**"A Brief Lesson on European Dragonology", by Merlin**

Dragons are not social creatures by nature. In fact, if left to their own devices, dragons are more likely to become recluses and snack on any unwise travelers who pass their lairs. Wild dragons prefer caves, and high up. Many mountaineers used to be eaten, because of this. A wild dragon's only true enemies are other dragons.

European dragons can produce a flame that can reach temperatures hot enough to melt stone into goo, or cool enough to mildly warm a room. The younger dragons are capable of hotter temperatures, but older dragons have the lung capacity to breathe fire for an average of two days without stopping. The record fire-breath was three days, two hours, and thirty-nine minutes, in the year 345 B.C.E by a Greek dragon called _Antexomenon, _who died a year later at the ripe age of 1,001.

European dragon scales are capable of withstanding intense heat, obviously, but a fight between a younger dragon (whose scales are softer but flame is hotter) and an older dragon (whose flame is incrementally cooler but scales are tougher than diamond) usually ends with the younger dragon as victor. This is because the younger dragon also has the assets of terrific speed and small size. A young dragon in flight reaches just short of the speed of sound, with a body the size of a cart horse. A fully grown dragon is significantly slower, and can grow to be as large as a two-story home. A house is a much easier target than a horse.

In the case of "Dragon Lords" (see also:_ Dragon Hatcher, American/ Dragon Rider, Australian/ Slayer, Japanese_), certain bloodlines boast the ability to withstand all dragon-fire without harm to his or her person. No other creature in the world has this ability. A Dragon Lord is also capable of speaking in _dragontongue_- a rough language of the dragons which serves to command, calm, or otherwise influence the dragons in his or her service. In ancient times, _dragontongue_ was used by only dragon nobility, such as the Leviathan, Behemoth, or Kraken clans.

The power of the Dragon Lords does not rely on magic-use, and thus it does not matter whether or not a Dragon Lord is magically competent. Rather the title of Dragon Lord comes with a blood-promise which began many millennia ago. Though the rules of this promise are hazy at best to modern researchers, it is believed that Dragon Lords draw their power directly from heavenly bodies.

**OooOooOooOooO**

There is screaming.

I am aware of that first, and then of the uneven cobblestones that are digging into my chin and ribs. I ache, my brain is mush, but I hear Arthur, clear and bright, roaring my name above the hot earthshake of the dragon's fire-cast bellow. And then I feel the heat.

It's a freezing, whispering, blinding light, funneling down on me and on the blackened humanoid who stands above me. Behind me, on either side of me, are two, pillaring legs made of steel scales and rippling muscle.

Mordred is screaming.

The fire is burning him- I can smell the sickening scent of wet flesh on fire, of angry blistering human. And as Mordred screams, the Emrys part of him lashes out- waves upon waves of blasting, red magic that digs into Kilgarrah's stream of fire, but never penetrates it. At best, it reflects it. And even though the stone below me is melting, and Mordred is grossly disfigured, I feel a rush like blood to the brain. The lightheadedness of power and strength flowing into me.

Fire grows on my limbs, snaking around my arms and legs and chest like vines. I can feel it curl into my hair and tease at my fingers. And as it grows around me, thundering in the crush of Kilgarrah's breath, I can almost hear it speak to me.

_...We are elemental beings, Merlin. To us, the ancient forces of this world are our playmates. There are all manner of them, from Water, to Dragons..._

Freya hadn't said Emrys, I realize. She'd said _Merlin_. Me: this was my natural element.

When I breathe in, the fire flows into my lungs and burns its way into my blood. When I breathe out, it falls from my mouth in twisted curls and scatters into the air.

There is relief and disbelief and an uneasy flash of _just what am I? _before Mordred-Emrys breaks through the fire.

Flies, is more like it. He soars in at impossible speeds and bowls into me like a diving falcon.

We tumble onto the stone beyond Kilgarrah's mighty form, flipping over one another, mixing limbs and hitting our heads. Kilgarrah is strong and quick of mind, but slower to turn, and by the time he's unleashed another breath, Mordred has dragged me out of time.

The world around us blinks into a stand-still, but shivers violently around the edges like rippling water. Kilgarrah's flame pauses in extension. I can see Arthur running with a raised sword, Morgana with fire in her eyes and sunlight at her fingertips, Felix kneels on the cobblestones with wetness tracking down his face and his head bowed and for the first time since he flipped the Gaia Stone, I can truly look at what Mordred has become.

His face is twisted and blotchy from baking in dragon-fire, quickly healing due to his Emrys-powers, but not enough. There is something deeper, inside of him, that seems to be hurting him and healing him over and over again. It rolls out of his shoulders and seals up again. He shudders and the world around us shudders, and time skips- movement as Arthur, Morgana, Felix, everyone starts to move- then freezes again. Mordred's eyes are red where they should be white, a gross black where they should be a startling blue.

"What have you _done _to me?" rasps Mordred.

It surprises me- after having him inside of my mind, I had expected more of a roar. His lips tremble. _All _of him trembles. He seems torn between crumbling into ash and ripping the world between his hands.

What is Mordred's natural element?

He shakes me- time shakes with us. It falls away into nothing, chipping at the image of the world until I have to swallow and close my eyes, unnerved.

"_You _flipped the Stone, Mordred," I say. "You were the one who started all of this!"

My hands find his and clench down hard. If he leaves me here, outside of time, I know exactly what will happen to me. But Mordred doesn't act as though he plans on leaving me anywhere. His grip, like mine, is desperate.

"You told me to!" he screams. Something rips inside of him. His lips are flecked with dark blood. "You gave it to me and _you told me to turn it!"_

"Mordred, _no," _I breathe, because I _hadn't. _Morgana had told me what the Stone was after it was flipped.

Could it be that more than Mordred's body was falling to pieces?

I try to breathe and fail. There is no air outside of time. Not for me. Not anymore.

All I can say is a dwindling, "_no, no, no"._

He shakes the nothingness around us, demolished eyes wild, before I feel the whisper of _somethingness _from the nil, and in a heartbeat, we are stumbling roughly back into time and Mordred-Emrys has released me.

I land heavily against the seat of Arthur's throne. The silk pillow slips under my bruised elbow and bunches against the rigid back.

"The Throne Room."

Mordred's voice fills the hall behind me.

I grip the armrest and struggle to remain upright. There's a dragging in my lungs that doesn't feel right. My legs are numb; I cannot stand.

"Thousands have died here. Blood is all gathered-up in the stonework here- so thick it's crusted into the pattern, you see?"

For a moment, I think that the darkness crawling up the walls is because of my fading vision, but when I can see it _shift _and _wink _I renew my struggles to rise.

"Thousands. I was taught that you were born from them. That your power came from them. When I went to Ealdor, I could tell your mother was barren. You may have had a mortal father, Merlin, but your birth was anything but natural..."

There are ghosts around me. Thousands of them. Faces of my village, of sorcerers from cultures I've never seen outside of books, of the young and whimpering Thomas Collins. My mother gazes down with calm eyes. Gaius watches me behind steeple fingers.

"_Help me," _I beg them.

Mordred-Emrys, with the winking blackness heavy on his shoulders, sits above me. His left foot grinds down on my hand and I clutch at my wrist, gasping.

He doesn't even notice me anymore. Instead, staring out over the empty hall of rich wood and strong red banners, he seems almost dazed by it. "I can see everything, and it hurts. Each one of them whispers to me from beyond time. Not one of them fears death, once they've passed him. Did you know," he starts again, as if pulling back to himself, "how many of them died because of you?"

"_No,"_ I manage.

Gaius murmurs, _But you will foresee it._

Mordred's head jerks at that. His blackened eyes swivel towards the shape of my old mentor, rolling in their sockets.

"I see," Mordred growls. "I foresee. The future is _my _story."

My mother whispers, _For you, my son, it will be a memory._

"Mordred, stop this!" I shout. I am in pain, I am angry, I am terrified "Take the stone and turn it over and it will all be over. For God's sake, _it's killing the both of us!"_

"I can fix it," Mordred says. "I can fix everything once I've killed him."

The snarl tears from my lips, "_You stay away from Arthur!"_

"Not Arthur." Something has cleared in his eyes- blue peeking through. "But the life that has never lived."

"The Queen and her child will _never _been touched by the likes of you, Mordred."

"Oh, no?" The muscles on either side of his mouth twitch strangely; a discord within his biology. Rotten magic with a sense of humor possessing his failing body.

"_I forsee,_" he whispers to the empty court.

It ripples, it shivers through the black that's swallowing the outdoor sun. Even without magic, I know that enchantment laces the words. I pray, begging Gaius and my mother that it will fail. That Gwen will not suddenly reappear. That it is impossible, even for Emrys, to drag a being from the Otherworld.

For a moment, nothing happens.

And then, wielding a familiar sword and covered in ash, Felix bursts through the main doors.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Okay guys. I did not realize it has been this long since my last update. At all. I really thought I updated maybe a month ago, tops. **

**I left some hints about things to come in this chapter, mostly calling on T.H White's works again. If you caught the clues, good on you! Meanwhile, Merlin is fading fast, Aithusa is right around the corner, and Felix seems to be a little more involved than we originally thought.**

**Classes start for me tomorrow, so I'll probably be spending a lot of my time writing instead of doing course work. ;D I hope you're all having a great summer! To those of you heading into finals, you have my best regards! **

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**


	11. The Life Which Never Lived

**Emrys Emergent**

**Chapter Eleven: The Life Which Never Lived**

**by Tonzura123**

**Disclaimer: I own one person in this chapter. One. Uno. Sorta.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>VI.<strong>_

_Then, with a melody_

_Stronger and statelier,_

_Led me at length_

_To the city and palace_

_Of Arthur the king;_

_Touch'd at the golden_

_Cross of the churches,_

_Flash'd on the Tournament,_

_Flicker'd and bicker'd_

_From helmet to helmet,_

_And last on the forehead_

_Of Arthur the blameless_

_Rested The Gleam._

_-"_The Gleam", Tennyson

* * *

><p><strong>THEN:<strong>

_"Mordred, stop this!" I shout. I am in pain, I am angry, I am terrified- "Take the stone and turn it over and it will all be over. For God's sake, it's killing the both of us!"_

_"I can fix it," Mordred says. "I can fix everything once I've killed him."_

_The snarl tears from my lips, "_You stay away from Arthur!"

_"Not Arthur." Something has cleared in his eyes- blue peeking through. "But the life that has never lived."_

_"The Queen and her child will _never _been touched by the likes of you, Mordred."_

_"Oh, no?" The muscles on either side of his mouth twitch strangely; a discord within his biology. Rotten magic with a sense of humor possessing his failing body. _

_"_I foresee," _he whispers to the empty court._

_It ripples, it shivers through the black that's swallowing the outdoor sun. Even without magic, I know that enchantment laces the words. I pray, begging Gaius and my mother that it will fail. That Gwen will not suddenly reappear. That it is impossible, even for Emrys, to drag a being from the Otherworld._

_For a moment, nothing happens._

_And then, wielding a familiar sword and covered in ash, Felix bursts through the main doors._

**NOW:**

"Felix?" I groan, still twitching under Mordred-Emrys' foot. "Run, get out of here, you little idiot!"

Even in the dim of the throne room, I can see a rakish grin sweep across his young face. "Cor, Merlin, why would I do that? The violence is just about to start."

"Upstart," Mordred murmurs. "Come to rescue your darling master, have you?"

Felix marches with his sword until he's at the base of the steps that ascend to the throne. He stands with all the pride of his age, with his growing shoulders thrown back and his sharpening chin lifted. He almost looks like a knight, and my heart aches with dread for him. The sudden and terrible thought fills me: he might not live to see it.

"I _have _come to rescue my darling master," Felix agrees. "Now, would you like to do this like gentlemen, or would you rather that I beat you into a bloody pulp? 'Cause I've got to say, I'm looking forward to it."

The darkness shivers.

The foot resting on my heart shifts ever so slightly, and a dose of youth enters into Mordred-Emrys' voice, "Ether?"

_Ether?_ I wonder. My vision wavers, gathering Felix's young face and twisting it into a younger- "_Arthur?"_

There is blue peeking through- in both Felix's and Mordred's eyes. I can see the cold sea in Mordreds, and the summer sky in Felix's. But only for a moment.

"It _is _you, isn't it?" Mordred-Emrys says. "And what's more, you're late. Typical."

"You want to talk typical? Look at you: bit off more than you can chew, huh Mor-Mor?"

"I flipped the Stone before you. I have what you want."

"Something I need, anyway," Felix agrees. "Let Merlin go. I'll find a way to fix you, you have my word."

Mordred is looking at him strangely. _Emrys _is looking at him strangely.

"It was you," Mordred-Emrys says. "It was you all along."

I cry out- I swear I can feel talons ripping into my heart, digging under my ribs, but my hands find nothing but darkened air and the whispering smoke of Mordred-Emrys' boot.

"A trade," Felix shouts. I think it draws Mordred's gaze away from me for a moment, because the talons grow faint. "I propose a trade. I give you what you want, you give me what I want. We leave Camelot out of the equation. Fair's fair."

Mordred breathes out. Something rides the breath.

"No, no..." he murmurs, removing himself from me.

I grab at his leg as he steps towards Felix, and am rewarded with a kick to the face. I go blind, gasping, grasping at air to do something, anything...

"Little Ether."

His voice is evil, evil I cannot bear to hear it; I crawl towards it, I have to make it.

_Ether who is Ether run Felix run_

"You ran from me," Mordred whispers. "You ran to me. You stand against me now and forever. _I FORSEE-" _

Something buffets me like wind but far hotter than wind and Mordred's voice rises again. Emrys grows louder by the second:

_"_Forsworn and forbearn and forsaken entirely. Little Ether. Little prince. Little _faydragon_."

Nonsense. All nonsense.

"_The Life Which Never Lived."_

_"No!" _I think I scream it, but then Felix is leaping up the steps, sword high over his head, and there is such a blazing ferocity in his dark eyes, that I am struck with an undeniable deja-vu.

Then the weight vanishes altogether from my chest. Felix lands heavily beside me, his sword barely missing my exposed middle. He wheels on his heels to face the open room, but does not stand from his spot over me. One hand, is placed above my heart.

"Don't move," he says seriously.

There is a heavy silence. If Mordred is there, he does not attack. And Felix doesn't move from above me. The pain in my heart begins to drain, and I roll my head to stare around me, but see nothing. A blackness other than Mordred-Emrys' magic is still covering my eyes.

"Felix..."

His hand twists over my heart. A jolt- like electricity, like lightning, like _singing fire_- jumps into my chest and begins to _thrum _my heart to its rhythm. Trembling takes up my limbs and I try to move away from it.

"Stop. It's all right, Merlin. It's not what you're used to, but it's all right."

"_I can't see."_

"Just give it a moment to work. Fae magic affects everyone a little differently."

"What are you- what is-"

But even as I speak, the rhythm pressing my heart along begins to slow, or else my own heart is speeding up, until the two are perfectly matched. They pound in tandem against my ribs. I let out a shaking breath, only to draw in another.

Felix sighs. "There, see? Good as new. Almost. You can open up your eyes now, Merlin. Mordred is gone."

Is he? I crack open one eye, then the other. The bright white light of the room almost overwhelms me, and I have to shut them again, grateful for Felix's hand over my heart when the throne room doors explode in again and I can hear the heavy steps of boots, the deeply frightened call of, "_Merlin!"_

"Here, Your Majesty," Felix replies above me.

A second pair of hands descend on me, roughly tugging until I'm sitting up, then crushed against a cold metal surface.

"He's alive, Sire."

There is no reply. I can't hear his heart or feel his breathing through the armor. But his hands are twitchy on my back.

"Merlin, _speak_," Felix commands. "The King needs to hear you speak."

"_Demanding prat," _I mutter.

A gust of breath whistles by my ear, and suddenly those twitching hands are pulling me closer than ever, pressing my face into a warm neck, fingers buried in my hair, a sound like choking laughs.

My eyes fly open. I watch Felix's sad young face beyond a powerful shoulder, and something trickles into my mind.

"Arthur?"

"I'm here, Merlin. I've got you. I've got you."

Felix sits beyond us and watches. Across his lap, Excalibur lies still and calm, practically vibrating under his hand. He offers me a half-smile when our eyes meet.

"I'm sorry," I say.

"Merlin?" Arthur wonders. I find myself slumping more heavily against my King's shoulder.

"So sorry."

Because whether I already had, or whether I one day would, I can be the only reason why Arthur's son and heir is sitting so calmly beside us.

**OooOooOooOooO**

Soft lips pressed against mine. A fire tickling my heart. A single, lily-soft hand stroking my cheek.

"That had better be you, Morgana," I mutter as I come to my senses.

She laughs, and I shield my eyes as I open them to squint at her. Morgana, all cat-eyes and white teeth, leans over my bedside with her long hair tumbling around us, that single streak of white like a split of lightning. My hand comes up before I can stop it and brushes lightly through it.

"Did I ever apologize for that?" I ask.

"I don't remember; I like it, anyway." She smiles conspiratorially down at me. "Just who did you think I was, just now?"

"I dunno. Arthur seemed fairly... _distraught _earlier."

At that, her mane and head whip back and she lets out a solid, belly-full laugh. "Oh, Merlin! I'm sure Arthur adores you plenty, but never in a million years could he ever, _ever_ be _that _affectionate with you."

"Of course he adores me," I say. "I'm adorable."

The lack of hair surrounding me suddenly allows me to see where I am residing- a castle room above ground, clearly, with an open window to a blue sky and birds. The room has a single bed, which I'm taking up, a dresser with a large mirror, several dresses of several colors pitched over furniture and trunks. _The Knights of Sable-helm _sits propped open on the desk: Morgana's quarters, then.

"He's been awfully affectionate lately," I say, looking around. "But then, everyone seems to be a lot more cuddly around me now that I'm dying."

Morgana rolls her eyes and stands and makes her way over to her vanity table to primp. She fusses at her hair, curling it around her fingers and adding some strange potions. "Don't be so dramatic, you buffoon."

"Ooh. Buffoon. See, you haven't even insulted me as much as you usually would!"

With a flick of her finger, a pillow from the other side of the bed shoots into the air and begins to pummel me in the face.

"Ow! Ah! Stoppit! Gerroff!"

"Please," Morgana drawls. "Tell me how _affectionate _I am now."

"Methinks-ow-the lady doth- pleh!-_protest too- _OUCH!"

A knock sounds at the door while I spit out a wad of goose feathers and pick the down from my teeth.

Morgana, suddenly and entirely prim, rises to answer it.

"Um," Felix says, taking in the sight of me covered in feathers and stepping minutely backwards. "I hope this isn't a bad time?"

"Darling!" Morgana smiles and opens her arms to him. The gesture is so unfamiliar with her character, that I can only gape when Felix closes the door and goes to embrace her. She gives him a kiss on his temple and pulls away to smile again at his face, stroking bangs out of his eyes, taking his chin in both of her hands as she absorbs the sight of him. "You did beautifully. I'm so very proud of you."

Felix grins, gently pulls her hands off of his person and kisses one of her hands.

"I completely forgot," I say dully, "that this would make you his aunt."

"Did you tell him?" she asks of Felix, who shakes his head.

"No. I think he figured it out. In the throne room when Fa- When the King came in."

"You were wielding Excalibur," I remember. "It didn't burn you up to hold it."

Felix blinks, "_That's _what you enchanted it to do?"

"I couldn't have just anybody running around and stealing it," I retort. "So either all the spells I've ever cast are falling apart with my magic, or you're Arthur's heir." I pause to squint at him. "But I've got to say, the two of you look almost nothing alike. I mean, some of your expressions are similar, but..."

"Sidhe glamour," Morgana explains.

Felix grins rakishly. "A partial Sidhe glamour, actually. I asked for a favour before I started working here."

"From who?"

"From you," Felix says. "You're the one who sent me here."

"Sent you where?" I ask stupidly.

"Here. To this time. Well," Felix amends, "To three years ago, approximately."

Morgana takes mercy on me.

"Ether, darling," she says, laying a hand on Felix's shoulder. "You may have to start from the beginning."

"Which beginning?" he asks wryly.

"How about you begin with your name?" I say. "Which are you: Ether or Felix?"

"Ah, brilliant," he laughs. "Though that isn't _quite _the beginning..."

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><p><strong>AN: **

**This chapter was pretty mawkish and short, but that's because it dropped a doozy of a plot point. Next chapter is an all-italics, throwback from Felix's delightful POV. Stay tuned. It's already half-finished and will save many of you the headache of trying to puzzle out everything on your own.**

**Love you guys and continue having a totally rad summer/winter/whatever else based on your global position.**

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**


	12. Do the Time Warp

**Emrys Emergent**

**Chapter Twelve: Do the Time Warp**

**by Tonzura123**

**Disclaimer: There. I ripped the magical, circled "C" from Merlin's precious face. Now he MUST be mine...**

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><p><em><strong>II.<strong>_

_Mighty the Wizard_

_Who found me at sunrise_

_Sleeping, and woke me_

_And learn'd me Magic!_

_Great the Master,_

_And sweet the Magic,_

_When over the valley,_

_In early summers,_

_Over the mountain,_

_On human faces,_

_And all around me,_

_Moving to melody,_

_Floated The Gleam._

_**-"The Gleam" by Alfred Tennyson**_

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><p><em>Time isn't some straight line that you can follow with your finger, but the world likes to think that way. The world can't help it- they're trapped by their own humanity. A three-dimensional world blindly aware of travelling through a fourth- a line that leads to some unseeable place. <em>

_But the Otherworld isn't blind like this world. And I was born there._

_My mother is Queen Guinevere Pendragon, wife of High King Arthur Pendragon of Albion. She sometimes told me that, when I was only a thought, something evil wanted to claim my life. This was mostly averted, and I was soon born. But you see, after a time, when the threat was gone, she came back and discovered that my father had vanished as well. I suppose my birth should have been a celebration in such a dark time. But my mother was heartbroken by the loss of her husband. With the help of a great sorcerer, she sent me back to be trained by the creatures of the Otherworld. I saw her often, almost twice a year in her time, which was still twenty-six more times than I had ever met my father._

_The Otherworlders fawned over me. They named me Ether, because I was of the air, and heir of Albion. _

_I grew up surrounded by magic. I played with it, trained in it. For twelve years of time outside of our time, I grew into a novice magician. I could wrestle trolls and race the basilisk and dance with the Seelie court until my legs went numb. I would never been a Sidhe, but I was something different than a human…_

**Three years ago and a few months from now...**

Ether sometimes thought he lived in the moon, because he and the Otherworlders were able to dance like ghosts through the human world when the moon's face was widest. They watched the humans, when the moon was thinnest. There was just enough room for them to press their eye into the white gap and stare down at the reveling nights. The Unseelie liked to encourage the wars. But the Seelie, Ether's Seelie, encouraged the midnight mischief.

In the moonlight, they zipped alongside horses and spooked them with sounds. They stole trinkets and planted them on enemies or lovers. They mimicked the beasts and loped beside them.

Only the craftiest of the Seelie knew how to break into the Second World- into the dream worlds that men carried around in their heads. Some men went years without finding them. And most never did. But a clever Otherworlder, if he or she knew the right words, could step in as easily as they stepped in the air.

Ether was not one of the craftiest or cleverest Otherworlders. He blamed that on his humanity.

It was midnight on Samhain and the Otherworlders hovered over his shoulder while he slipped the glamour over his head. It, like all his glamours, was more of a net than a cloth- magic woven over reality, but not really hiding it. It was the strongest that he could manage. He didn't have a lot of natural magic to him to start with, but with a _little _cleverness, he could make-do.

Below them, in the human world, hundreds of men and women danced around their campfires. Ether could feel it where he stood, and was glad of the smoke that helped blot out the moon, because it also hid the small star that fell off the lip of it.

_Down, down, down into Albion-_

_Down, down, down into Man-_

_Down, down, grievous Wanderer,_

_Deep down, n'to the pit of the Damned!_

Ether shuddered with the spell that they chanted after him. It followed ahead, crushing the ground into a hollow and letting him softly find his feet. He stroked his fingers along it as it ravelled back up into the Otherworld, leaving him behind with the glamour netting over his face.

He took a breath and straightened his shoulders.

Otherworlders loved to make mischief with the Men of the World, but they knew that mischief is an art style carried by _presence _and _surprise. _Mischief is no good to anyone if Otherworlders are always up to it. How could that keep Men on their toes? It couldn't. Men, though dull, adjust rather well to their environments. And too much mischief, the Otherworlders realized, was something that couldn't happen.

So they shortened the nights and they slimmed the groups. And when it came time for Ether to have a turn, he was all alone.

Or he _thought _he was alone, because the first Men which Ether found had a fortress around them unlike any magic he had seen.

Ether crept close, hiding behind the trees, his eyes glowing as he took in the sight ahead of him.

The foreign magic was so fine that it was almost invisible, like unicorn wool. And the strength of it rolled through him, not a ripple from a single shot of magic, but a stream of it, moving out and out and _out_ from nothing.

At first, he thought it was the Otherworlders playing a prank on him, for he was a Man. Technically. But his sourness passed as he used his Man-eyes on the group around the fire.

Knights, he saw. About a dozen of them, gleaming in their chainmail and armor, all handsome and ruddy and jolly. He edged a little closer, breathing by the worms in the dirt and the moths on the leaves. His glamour shimmered around his eyes, he pulled at the webbing to better see.

There was one man not like the others- a rippling man, bent with age. He was withered like an old apple core, brown about the skin with years of sunlight, endless searching in the reflection of humming water. His long white hair whispered down his bowed back, tapering off into a messy braid. He looked about a hundred years old to Ether's Man-eyes, but when he saw the man by magic...

Well. That was another story altogether.

_This is hardly fair_, Ether mused._ Here I am, trying to play pranks on men, and men are playing pranks on me!_

And then the rippling man's eyes crossed his.

Ether knew at once, even before the earth beneath him began to lurch, that he was caught. The soft mossy ground rose up and wrapped around his ankles, pinning him in place, and the vines of the murmuring oaks bound his arms. The frogs began to croak, loudly, like an alarm.

The rippling man said, "Ah, so I remembered this time. Just as awkward and certain as your father will be. You've got some of his build, haven't you? But I suppose the Seelie court are to be blamed for the rest."

Ether struggled, bewildered. The knights didn't seem surprised at all with the way the old man was talking. In fact, they froze and flickered like a dream. Then, shockingly, they vanished at once.

"Oh!" he exclaimed.

The rippling man creaked to his feet and hobbled in Ether's direction, flicking his fingers this way and that in the air, sending waves and waves of magic towards him, undoing the spells on the vegetation without so much as a glance or a word.

Ether staggered and regained his equilibrium. "The knights were a mirage!"

"Yes, a mirage," nodded the man. "Of the air, just like you."

Ether looked at him sharply. "Who are you?"

"Who am I," said the man. He thought very hard, tugging fitfully at his beard. "Who I am is a little difficult to explain, I'm afraid. I am what I was and what I will be, but at the moment, I'm more of what I will be, unlike how I will be what I was... Oh bother." He had tugged so hard on his beard that a little bit ripped out. He held it up and breathed on it, and it floated away to be caught up by a nesting owl.

"You're mad," Ether said, delighted. He'd always wanted to meet a madman. The Seelie favored them as company, and Ether was beginning to see why: you could never tell what they would say.

"I'm Emrys," corrected the man. "I've always been like this. I think."

**OooooooooO**

Ether was curious enough about Emrys to follow him to a small coal hut in the thick of the woods.

If Ether had been a normal boy, the place would have frightened him. Twisting shadows and snapping twigs surrounded the place. There was a cold, sharp feeling like eyes were always watching you, and he could smell the movement of wolves and other things in the trees, lurking just out of sight. But Ether was raised by the Seelie court- earthly creepers were laughable to him.

"_Do _you make coal?" Ether wondered, ducking his head so that he didn't bump into the lintel. It was warm inside, if horribly messy. Small animals lived in every pile of clothes or wood or compost that scattered around the space. Something big breathed under the large flowered quilt in the far corner.

"No," Emrys said. He stopped and scratched his head. "But I could, actually. I hear it's a noble profession."

He drew off his outer robe and threw it over the breathing quilt in the corner, then put on another one (identical, but magenta) from a hook on the wall. With a flick of his hands, flint flew into his gnarled hands and he hunched over the barren fireplace, striking them clumsily against one another.

Ether watched for a moment, then, growing impatient, let his eyes flash gold.

A spark jumped from the stones and into the fireplace. They lit up immediately into a roaring fire that caught a bit of Emrys' beard on fire.

"Oh, sorry," Ether said, as Emrys patted at himself vigorously. "Need some water?"

"Water?" demanded Emrys. "And be drowned? Never! Rather the pyre than a pool. Awfully noble, fire."

Yes, thought Ether, the maddest madman to ever madden a night. "So how do you know who I am? Does your magic tell you things like that?"

"Magic. Doesn't tell you much, does it? Have to guess a lot, don't you? No. We'll meet- have met- when you were older. I saw it. Tobacco?" He offered Ether a tin of old, smelly leaves and a pipe (Ether declined both) and puttered around, magicking teapots and strange clear boxes with the words _Tupperware_ through the air. Emrys ate out of them as they floated by. "You are going to play a terrible part in it all, I'm afraid."

"You met me when I was older," Ether repeated. "Isn't that a little backwards?"

"What's forwards? You face one way, I face one way- presto! Two points of view."

"So, you live backwards- I mean to say- you get younger every year instead of older?"

"I suppose I have, haven't I?"

Ether helped himself to some of the chicken floating by on a red dish marked _SOLO_. "But that sounds fantastic!"

Emrys puffed on his pipe, blowing animated clouds of trees and dragons into the short ceiling. "I had a vision, once, when you were older," he said. "You had begun to understand that taking a path apart from your loved ones will always be fantastic. But it will be fantastically lonely. And then I remember how you reacted just now, and it was a little heartbreaking."

"All right," said Ether. "About that. About knowing me. How do we know each other? Did you say you knew my father?"

"I rather hate the linguist who decides on grammatical tenses," Emrys muttered.

"Present tense," Ether suggested. "Can you think in the present tense like everyone else?"

Emrys shrugged. "For a while."

"Good. _Do _you know me?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"I'm there when you're born. I guide you between the Men and Fae. I send you on a mission to save the world."

Ether let out a bewildered laugh. "You do what? When do I ever get around to something like _that_?"

Emrys tapped tobacco ash onto his rug and checked the ticking circle on the far wall.

"In about twenty seconds."

"Twenty seconds?" Ether would have laughed again but he could feel that wooly magic gathering again, and that time it was a hundred times stronger. He began to feel very nervous. "What am I even supposed to save it from? Where am I-"

"-More like..."

The wooly magic grabbed Ether by the feet and yanked.

"_...when."_

**OooooooooO**

Time travel, for beginners, is impossibly hot. (People in lab coats and PhD programs might say otherwise, but what do they know _really?_) If Ether hadn't been raised by the Otherworlders, you can bet your buttons that he'd have shriveled up like Emrys' tobacco ash. As it is, Ether appears in the exact same spot, more than thirteen years in the past of his own timeline. This is to say, he is simultaneously a lovely dream in his mother's mind and a soot-faced, slightly smoking twelve-year-old sitting in the middle of a coal-maker's hut.

The resident coal maker is not pleased.

The first thing Ether discovers is that coal makers are strong. Ridiculously so. The man lifts him with one hand and boots him clear out the door, shouting about the lunacy of sorcerers and the evil of magic and how he will _report him so-help-him-god if he doesn't get out of here quickly._

The second thing Ether learns is that forests change over thirteen years. He should know the trees here, but cannot place them for the life of him. He wanders, dazed, for a few miles, finding himself more and more lost until he comes across a small hovel where a kid about his age is bringing firewood.

Ether stumbles, falls on his hands, and makes his way over to him. "Oi!"

The boy spins, drops his firewood, and _blasts him_.

The forest floor is lovely and soft, but Ether is growing less dazed and more angry by the second. He can see why Men aren't so thrilled by the prospect of dealing with madmen now. He leaps to his feet.

"What is your damage, moron?" he shouts. "Can't a fellow ask for directions in these fae-forsaken woods without being kicked or killed?"

The boy's eyes glow in the dusky light. "Leave, little boy, if you know what's good for you."

"Oho." Ether's temper flares, along with a bright flush in his cheeks, and he sets his jaw. "Is a dwarf like you going to make me?"

Realistically, Ether can't be more than an inch taller than the other boy, but when you're younger and shorter than most of Earth's population, technicalities like that begin to matter at a very personal level. The boy turns purple. His eyes clench shut and he shouts loudly, magic whipping out like a punch. It's very fast and very strong.

And very obvious.

Ether already has a shield up, and while his shields are always weak and shatter easily, it's enough to keep him from being knocked off of his feet again.

"Ha!" he crows. "Is that all you've-?"

But this time, when he goes flying backwards, Ether stops in midair as the forest vines grab him up and stretch him out like animal skin. From behind him comes a soft footfall, and a third person joins the scene- a beautiful woman in all black. Her wild hair is black, too- tumbling and knotted. Her eyes are a fierce gold. One hand is splayed out in his direction, trembling with the forces she commands. The other beckons to the bratty dwarf, who sidles up to her.

"Mordred," the woman says sweetly. "Who is your friend?"

"A magic user," the boy, Mordred, tells her. "Not the druid kind. He ambushed me."

"So, you're a liar as well as a dwarf," Ether says sourly. A vine tightens warningly around his neck.

"How did he get past the warding?"

Mordred nods enthusiastically. "Exactly! I wasn't expecting anyone. He came out of nowhere and started picking a fight with me. What if he works for _them_?"

"_They _don't use magicians, Mordred."

Mordred deflates, glaring up at Ether like he's trying to pick apart a particularly dense knot. The beautiful woman looks back at Ether.

"How did you pass our wards, boy?"

Ether wants to scream. Only a few hours ago he had left his home in the Otherworld to play tricks on Men. Now, he was tangled in a forest much younger than the one he'd started in, with only the word of a crazy old sorcerer that he would live to save the world, and no clue of how to return home to his family and friends. Brilliant.

"Look," he says. "Obviously, we've all started this relationship off on the wrong spell. I didn't know I was trespassing. I don't actually know where I am at all. I'm a long way from home, I'm tired, and if one more person picks me up and tosses me, kicks me, or drags me through a wormhole, I'll snap."

Mordred looks at Morgana. Morgana looks at Mordred.

"Look," Ether repeats. "Could you please put me down and lend me some bread or something while you decide whether or not to kill me? It's been a long day."

**OooooooooO**

In the end, they take Ether into their hovel and let him "spend the night." This is in quotations because the night turns into the week, and the week the month, and before any of them know it Ether is part of the savage little family of magic users in the hovel in the woods. Morgana's rationale changes with each day that passes. At first, Ether is allowed to stay because she has to figure out how he got in. Then, Ether should probably stay because he really is very famished and where will he go, anyway, as a magic-user in an anti-magic society like this one? And _then, _it's because he has to repair the part of the hovel which he and Mordred demolish during one of their rows, or he won't be getting any supper _just see if she's joking._

And after all the repairs are finished, well, nobody really thinks much about Morgana taking on another apprentice very much. Even Mordred, for all of his huffing and puffing, is secretly pleased to have another boy around to practice with. Especially since Ether is as eager to test the more violent spells as Mordred is, and neither of them mind very much about getting beat-up in the process. Plus, in the winter months, Mordred no longer needs to sleep bundled beside Morgana, but can snore freely on the floor rug with Ether. In the spring, they race each other around and keep things interesting all the time. Morgana helps them trim their hair with a pair of sharp shears with a dragon rampant printed in the side of one blade. She helps them darn their own socks and stitch the knees of their trousers.

Ether learns about the kingdom, and what it's like to live with humans, especially humans his own age. He becomes a little less fae, and little more human, and a lot more worried about how he's expected to save the world.

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><p><strong>AN: Do your eyes deceive you? Nope, this is an update. With more to come! Ether's not done telling his side of the story.**

**This is very fast-paced, mostly because there's a lot of ground to cover and I want to give it all to you as soon as possible. Emrys (the old man Merlin version) shows up again to help with the explanations. Things get a little _Doctor Who_ around Ether.**

**Thanks for reading! Hope you're all having an awesome week.**

**As Always,**

**-Tonzura123**


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